Four plus days into Israel’s bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic of Iran, it’s obvious that Israel has achieved complete air superiority and is bombing Iranian targets at will. There’s ample evidence of successful precision strikes on a wide range of targets, from aircraft hangers and runways to oil storage facilities:
That said, Teddy Roosevelt famously advised “Speak softly and carry a big stick,” and, right now, Uncle Sam seems to be crafting a mighty big stick within striking distance of Iran:
Item: There are now three aircraft carriers (two American, one British) taking positions within striking distance of Iran:
USS Nimitz (CVN-68) and her Carrier Strike Group appear to be heading now in the direction of the Middle East, which would place three aircraft carriers, the U.S. Navy’s USS Carl Vinson and USS Nimitz as well as the Royal Navy’s HMS Prince of Wales, off the coast of Iran. https://t.co/e1SVUxQ5RW
Item: “A major military airlift appears to now be underway, as an unprecedented number of U.S. Air Force KC-135 and KC-46 Aerial-Refueling Tankers have departed from airbases across the United States and appear to be preparing to cross the Atlantic towards Europe.”
Item: Multiple B-2s are already believe to be stationed at Diego Garcia, well within strike distance of Iran for the B-2 (though it might need refueling on the return trip).
Maybe all that movement is indeed just to give President Trump “options” should the Iranians try something crazy. But if I had to guess, it seems like the groundwork for some sort of planned operation is being laid.
It may be that President Trump thinks that the the mullah’s current prostrate and distracted status may be the perfect time to settle the Houthi’s hash. Having already attacked American navy ships (absolute casus belli under international law), the time may be ripe to finally dismantle the Houthi threat.
Another possibility: One thing the otherwise extremely capable Israeli Air force lacks is a heavy bomber. The B-2 can carry the 30,000 lb GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator, which has a much better chance of pentrating the massive reinforced concrete bunkers for Iran’s nuclear facilities at Natanz and Fordow. Given the complete destruction of Iran’s air defenses, Trump could even covertly greenlight B-2 strikes on those sites without telling anyone except Israel’s high command, giving him “plausible deniability” that America is involved.
There are few events more satisfying that watching the hard fist of reality punching smug, naive, leftwing protestors square in their virtue-signaling face. This time it was “pro-Palestinian” sorts who thought they could blithely waltz into the Gaza warzone from Egypt, only to have disgusted Egyptians kick their asses.
A Gaza aid activist has said they were ‘violently dragged’ onto buses and ‘beaten’ as Egyptian authorities deported them.
Thousands have been arriving from more than 80 countries since Thursday to join the Global March to Gaza protest against Israel’s aid blockade on Gaza.
Yes, other countries just love it when self-aggrandizing “activist” drama queens show up in their country to cause trouble.
The some 4,000 volunteers landed in Cairo as planned, then taking buses to the city of Arish in the north of the country’s Sinai Peninsula.
From there, they hope to start their planned march, on a roughly 30-mile route, to the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing on the Gaza border.
But organisers said today that several dozen activists were stopped on the edge of Cairo as they attempted to reach the Suez Canal city of Ismailia, which is around a three-hour drive from Arish.
One posted a video to social media while on a bus heading there, saying: ‘This is an emergency.’
‘We have just been violently dragged into the buses here at the first checkpoint on the way to Ismailia.
Wait: Violence in the Middle East?
‘We were sitting quietly and not doing anything. We were debating that we would leave soon, in taxis back to Cairo because we did not break any law.’
So you naively jetted off to a Middle Eastern country and just blithely assumed that the rules governing “peaceful” protests that apply in western countries would apply there as well? It sounds like you’re exactly the sort of idiot that deserves and needs a beating. Maybe it will drive the stupid out of you. As Benjamin Franklin noted, “Experience keeps a dear school, yet Fools will learn in no other.”
‘And all of a sudden, several people stormed in and they started to push people and drag them violently outside.
‘They have beaten people. I have seen one woman that was beaten in her face in front of me. They didn’t leave time to grab the luggage or anything.
‘So, this is one of the Secret Service people that was just walking in here. I have to stop this livestream now – we are in danger. This is an emergency. We need to help.’
Most of the activists were ordered onto buses back to the capital after several hours of questioning – but some remain in custody today, organisers said.
‘We were blocked for six to seven hours before security forces violently dispersed our group,’ one organiser said.
At least one activist was expelled from Egypt, several sources said, adding to dozens more denied entry or expelled in the run-up to the march.
Egyptian authorities have not commented on the reported expulsions.
The foreign ministry had warned that while Egypt backs efforts to put ‘pressure on Israel’ to lift its Gaza blockade, any foreign delegations intending to visit the border area must obtain prior permission.
Yeah, just barge in without so much as a “by your leave.” Foreign countries just love when smug leftists do that.
Asmongold has some video on the incident:
The amazing thing is that it seems to be regular Egyptians (rather than any security forces) administering the beatdowns. “Egyptian children are helping remove the western terrorist sympathizers, some with whips of their own.” Welcome to the Middle East, morons.
“Go back to Reddit!”
He suggests that Middle Easterners view westerners as a destabilizing force after their involvement in so many regional wars. Maybe. But I think they’re just particularly incensed at these virtue signaling useful idiots blithely waltzing into their country to support the universally loathed Palestinians.
The lesson is a pretty fundamental one that these idiots should have learned long before reaching adulthood: Don’t stick your nose where it doesn’t belong And especially don’t travel halfway around the world to start shit in a foreign country due to your warped conception of “social justice” that the natives hold in contempt.
And if you haven’t learned that lesson by now, don’t be surprised when the fists and whips of the locals repeatedly beat that message into your overly soft noggin.
You probably heard that Democrats spent $20 million to try and figure out why young men hate them so much. FreedomToons imagines how the focus group went…
Israeli’s strike on Iran may be shocking to some, but I remember talking to co-workers about the possibility literally two decades ago. The Ayatollah Khomeini made the complete destruction of Israel a stated policy goal at the very outset of the Iranian revolution. Multiple Israeli PMs and American Presidents have made it clear to the Islamic Republic of Iran that they would not be allowed to produce nuclear weapons. Now the mullahs are reaping the whirlwind. And the strikes are still going on. As of this writing, there have been at least nine waves of Israeli strikes on Iran.
Other news: Trump racks up more legal victories, somebody SWATs the head of the FBI, more illegal alien felons deported from Houston, and a couple of callbacks to the 1970s. Plus a whole lot of bullet lists.
“It’s a complete embarrassment for the air defense here. Zero confirmed interceptions of missiles and aircraft so far.” Which is what you would expect after Israel took out Iran’s shitty Russian SAM systems. Not to mention the fact that Iran’s most capable fighter aircraft are pre-revolutionary F-14s…
WILD FOOTAGE! Mosaad had bulit an entire drone facility deep inside Iran, which was activated as the IAF struck with 200 aircraft. The drones took out many surface-to-air missile launchers and ballistic missiles aimed at Israel. The entire Iran now has zero air defenses left. pic.twitter.com/x9IxtfiO1V
If you’ve followed the Middle East at all over the past few decades, you’ve understood that the region was on a path to a conflict — the mullahs in Iran kept inching closer to a functioning nuclear weapon, and Israel — and multiple American presidents — kept declaring that that outcome was unacceptable and had to be prevented at all costs. On June 12, 2025, the Israeli military did something about it. Read on.
Last night’s Israeli air strike was surprising, but also inevitable.
Israel could not live in a world where the Iranian regime had nuclear weapons — or to put it another way, once the mullahs in Tehran had a nuclear weapon, Israel was certain to die, it was just a matter of when. It was just about inevitable that the world’s foremost sponsor of terrorism — the primary sponsor of Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Yemen’s Houthis, among others — would sooner or later use those weapons against Israel.
If America were hit by half-dozen nuclear bombs, the effects would be devastating, but America would still function and carry on. If Israel were hit by six nuclear bombs — say one each in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, and three other targets of your choice — it would likely cease to exist as a state. Almost three-quarters of Israelis live in cities. Israel’s land area is smaller than New Hampshire.
Two months ago I gave Iran a 60 day ultimatum to “make a deal.” They should have done it! Today is day 61. I told them what to do, but they just couldn’t get there. Now they have, perhaps, a second chance!
Also:
Two Israeli officials claimed to Axios that Trump and his aides were only pretending to oppose an Israeli attack in public — and didn’t express opposition in private. “We had a clear U.S. green light,” one claimed.
The goal, they say, was to convince Iran that no attack was imminent and make sure Iranians on Israel’s target list wouldn’t move to new locations.
Netanyahu’s aides even briefed Israeli reporters that Trump had tried to put the brakes on an Israeli strike in a call on Monday, when in reality the call dealt with coordination ahead of the attack, Israeli officials now say.
While mainstream news outlets, cable networks and social media obsess over Elon Musk’s latest antics, they have neglected a far more important story — the Trump administration is accumulating a significant catalogue of appeals court and SCOTUS victories. Last Friday alone three more wins were added to the list. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the White House may exclude AP from its press pool while SCOTUS stayed a district court order requiring DOGE to heed a Freedom of Information Act request and ruled that it can access Social Security Administration records.
These rulings follow a spate of similar wins last month. On May 30, the Supreme Court stayed a district court ruling that DHS Secretary Kristi Noem couldn’t revoke former President Biden’s parole of 532,000 non-citizens. On May 29, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit stayed a U.S. Trade Court ruling that President Trump’s tariffs are somehow unlawful. On May 22, SCOTUS stayed a district court order reinstating two Biden administration officials fired by Trump. On May 19, SCOTUS stayed a district court ruling that Secretary Noem does not possess the legal authority to terminate the temporary protected status of 350,000 Venezuelan non-citizens.
The seven cases noted above do not exhaust the list of the Trump administration’s wins. During April the administration won three Supreme Court cases. On April 17, Justice Elena Kagan declined to stay a deportation order involving four Mexican nationals without referring the case to the full court. On April 8, SCOTUS stayed a district court order to reinstate 16,000 fired federal employees. On April 7, the Court vacated a district court order blocking deportations pursuant to the Alien Enemies Act. This particular ruling, combined with two others, led the editors of the Wall Street Journal to conclude that the Supreme Court was sending a message to the district courts:
President Trump is exercising executive power in aggressive and often novel ways, and opponents are suing to stop him. But in a trio of recent orders, the Supreme Court has sent lower-court judges an important reminder that they must still respect judicial rules and procedures. A 5-4 majority handed Mr. Trump a partial victory Monday by allowing his Administration to continue deporting Venezuelans believed to be members of the Tren de Aragua gang under the Alien Enemies Act.
The same radical leftists who love burning down cities during their “peaceful protests” are looking to do the same thing this Saturday.
The pro-open-borders riots that have set parts of Los Angeles on fire and have spread to other U.S. cities, including New York, Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, were anticipated more than a year ago by Democratic Party operatives gaming out ways to destabilize a second Donald Trump administration. Press reports and war-game scenarios from early 2024 predicted domestic unrest caused by the Trump administration’s arrest and deportation of illegal aliens. Consequently, according to the forecasts, the president’s decision to use the military to quell the violence triggers a crisis at the Pentagon and threatens to split the leadership of the U.S. armed forces.
Whether those scenarios were simply Democratic Party fan fiction or early evidence of a genuine plot to destabilize the government in the event Trump was reelected is likely to become clearer this Saturday. Trump has scheduled a large military parade in the nation’s capital for June 14—the U.S. Army’s 250th anniversary, Flag Day, oh, and Trump’s birthday—while his adversaries have planned for a massive nationwide anti-deportation protest the same day. If the point is to overwhelm the capacities of local law enforcement agencies across the country, the administration may have no choice but to mobilize National Guard units and regular troops, like those now on the streets of Los Angeles. And it is the mass mobilization of the U.S. military in American cities, according to the 2024 scenarios, that prompts a crisis in the administration.
According to border czar Tom Homan, the ICE raid that sparked the mayhem in Los Angeles wasn’t detailed to catch illegal aliens, but to serve warrants for a cartel’s money-laundering operation. But to Americans left and right, the protests are about open borders. The Democratic Party base broadly supports the policy, or lack of one, with the radical left leading the violence, and relatively normal Democratic voters believing that it’s a betrayal of American values to refuse anyone a shot at the American dream. Trump voters, on the other hand, expect the president to fulfill his campaign promise to deport tens of millions of illegal aliens. Therefore, Trump couldn’t ignore the riots, even if they directly affected only those who oppose him on open borders, and virtually everything else.
Plans to destabilize the second Trump term have been in the works for at least a year and a half, and the Pentagon was virtually announced as home-base of the next anti-Trump plot.
Copied link
The FBI is investigating “any and all monetary connections responsible for these riots.” But some of the funding streams are already evident—they’re the usual sources of left-wing activist groups and donors, like the Neville Roy Singham-funded Party for Socialism and Liberation—which is to say that money isn’t the crucial factor. For instance, Elon Musk’s shutdown of USAID, which former administrator Samantha Power had used as a slush fund to advance progressive causes here and abroad, emptied only the public sector’s progressive piggy bank. America is teeming with private-sector donors, from “disruptive” tech billionaires to the wan and loveless heiresses who are keen to spend their inheritance on violence that impoverishes others. In America, no leftist will ever go hungry.
The crucial issue is never money but leadership. That top figures and institutions of the Democratic Party have lined up behind the protests already suggests we’re not dealing simply with supposedly fringe elements on the far-left flank of the party. In fact, the operatives who in 2024 gamed out this latest anti-Trump effort are among the party bosses who ran the plot against the president during his first term. Among others, there’s Marc Elias, the Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer who paid for the dossier falsely alleging Trump’s ties to Russia; Mary McCord, a former Barack Obama Justice Department official who oversaw federal law enforcement’s unlawful investigation of the Trump circle; and Rosa Brooks, a former Obama Pentagon official who led the Transition Integrity Project, a 2020 war-game exercise forecasting how Trump was likely to contest the flagrant irregularities that would mark that year’s election and shape its aftermath. TIP was also a communications campaign, feeding press reports that outlined what the Democratic Party and allied institutions—including the court system and Congress—were preparing in order to stop the Republican leader and his supporters.
It seems the same Obama-led crew that’s been targeting Trump since 2015 is still running the same op.
DataRepublican has more info on those funding the protests (with your tax dollars):
JUST RELEASED: Follow the Money Behind the No Kings Rally
DataRepublican has launched an interactive, open-source map showing how your tax dollars flow to organizations involved in the No Kings rally.
The House Committee on Oversight and Reform is about to focus its investigative powers on Neville Roy Singham, the pro-China Marxist multimillionaire behind many of the destructive far-left demonstrations plaguing the United States in recent years.
The Committee is reportedly issuing a formal document request to Singham over his alleged financial support of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL)—an extremist Marxist group that has been helping to organize violent anti-ICE riots in Los Angeles and elsewhere.
As the main funder of The People’s Forum, Singham, 71, has also bankrolled the “Free Palestine” protests that erupted after 1,400 innocent Israelis were slaughtered by Hamas on October 7, 2023. The People’s Forum works closely with other organizations in Singham’s network, including PSL and the ANSWER Coalition, all of which have been involved in the anti-Israel protests and anti-ICE riots.
PSL describes itself as a revolutionary socialist party that believes “only a revolution can end capitalism and establish socialism.”
The group supports the Communist Party of China (CCP) and argues that “militant political defense of the Chinese government” is necessary to stave off “counterrevolution, imperialist intervention and dismemberment.”
Trump has shifted the Overton window in the culture away from woke, and it’s hard to imagine it shifting all the way back.
Corporations aren’t going to play ball again the way they did after the death of George Floyd. Trump could well lose his legal battle with Harvard and other schools, but they’ve admitted that they need to change. DEI and other race-conscious policies may go subterranean under different rubrics, although that, in itself, is a sign of weakness. Black Lives Matter has been discredited by scandal, and “anti-racism” now feels more like a relic than the hot new thing.
Let’s hope so, but the left’s embrace of wokeness seems essentially religious (or “religious substitute”) in nature, and religions are notoriously hard to stamp out…
The Wagner Group is bugging out of Mali in favor of new Russian military backed “Africa Corps.”
The Russian Wagner Group formally withdrew from Mali, as the Kremlin continues to transition control of its military operations in Africa to the Ministry of Defense–backed Africa Corps. The shift to more overt Russian state military involvement in Africa creates myriad domestic and geopolitical risks for the Kremlin. Russia may accordingly adapt its engagement in Africa to the detriment of its current and prospective partnerships.
According to this Warfronts (AKA Simon Whistler) video, Wagner is leaving because the Jama’at Nusrat al Islam (JNIM) jihadis have been kicking their ass using motorcycle-based battleswarm tactics, which are well suited for sparsely inhabited, mostly desert environments like Mali.
Harris County gives up on its socialist guaranteed income program.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has deported 142 criminal aliens from the Houston area to Mexico.
Among them were eight known gang members, 11 convicted child predators, and one individual who had entered the country illegally 21 separate times.
Collectively, the group illegally entered the country 480 times and accumulated 473 criminal convictions for a wide range of serious crimes, including:
11 convictions for child sex crimes
76 convictions for driving while intoxicated (DWI)
43 convictions for aggravated assault and domestic violence
22 convictions for human smuggling
ICE Houston Field Office Director Bret Bradford said, “Unfortunately, this is not an anomaly. For the past few years, there has been virtually no deterrent to illegal entry into the country.”
As a result, millions of illegal aliens, including violent criminals, child predators, transnational gang members, and foreign fugitives, have poured into the U.S.
Among the most egregious cases:
Benito Charqueno Zavala, 60, was convicted of continuous sexual abuse of a child and is one of the 11 convicted child predators deported.
Johnny Urbina Carillo, 37, was convicted of sexually exploiting a minor and had prior convictions for cocaine possession and illegal reentry.
Luis Angel Garcia-Contreras, 40, a documented member of the Sureños 13 gang, had illegally entered the U.S. 21 times and had four convictions for illegal entry.
Aaron Reitz, a former deputy attorney general under Ken Paxton and recent Trump administration appointee, announced his campaign for the Republican nomination for Texas attorney general.
Reitz made the announcement Thursday, a day after resigning as assistant attorney general for legal policy under Pam Bondi in the Department of Justice. He previously served as Paxton’s deputy attorney general for legal strategy and as chief of staff to U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.
“We are in a fight for the soul of Texas, our nation, and Western civilization itself,” said Reitz in a campaign statement. “This is no time for half-measures or untested cowards.”
“As Attorney General, I’ll use every ounce of legal firepower to defend President Trump, crush the radical Left, advance the America and Texas First agenda, and look out for everyday Texans,” he added.
State senator Mayes Middleton is already in the race.
Finally, an excuse to dig out this classic meme from the depths of time.
Forty electric busses burn in Philadelphia. “They were parked in such a way that there was NO chance for firefighters to do anything. They could[n’t] get close to the fire. The buses were parke[d] so close together that a fire in 1 bus was almost guaranteed to destroy a bunch of them. And with electric buses mixed in, whatever caused the fire, toxic fumes were going to be released.”
Richard Hammond drives the new Morgan Supersport. I’m not a candidate to spend £125,000 on a two seater sports car, even if it were available in the U.S., but that really is a nice looking car.”
Israel has announced again and again that they cannot accept an Islamic Republic of Iran, which has stated it desires the complete destruction of Israel, acquiring nuclear weapons. Right now they’re doing something about it.
The IDF has started to attack dozens of Iranian nuclear sites.
Warning sirens have been set off to get the public ready for potential Iranian counter attacks of ballistic missiles on Israel.
Iran has not yet fired ballistic missiles, but has thousands of them.
According to the IDF, Iran has enough uranium to weaponize it to nuclear levels to 15 nuclear weapons within days
In recent days, Iran developed a plan with Hezbollah and Hamas and other proxies to destroy the State of Israel, potentially including attempts to attack via all borders, including Egypt and Jordan.
This was the point of no return according to the IDF.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has entered the security cabinet.
The IDF targets also include commanders, bases as well as nuclear sites, though the main goal is nuclear sites.
Further, the IDF said in the last 20 minutes, Iran was taken by surprise and they were attacked in places they didn’t expect.
There are reports of multiple airstrikes in Tehran:
— Niyak Ghorbani (نیاک) (@GhorbaniiNiyak) June 13, 2025
For decades, the Islamic Republic of Iran has attacked Israel via terrorist proxies, and spent vast sums developing nuclear weapons over taking care of their own people or growing their economy. In the wake of Hamas’ terrorist attacks of October 7, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pursued a steadfast policy of neutralizing or destroying jihadist threats against his country. Now he’s eliminating the threat of a nuclear Iran.
Update 3: Trying to find footage of the strikes on YouTube, but all I’m finding is those crappy, non-embeddable “shorts.” This Hindustan Times live feed has some footage.
Initial reports suggest that Mossad, Israel’s national intelligence agency, conducted covert operations deep in Iran focused on its air defense and missile capabilities. Israel appears to have targeted Iranian military personnel and senior nuclear scientists with the strikes, including the chief of staff of the Iranian armed forces.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz declared an immediate state of emergency upon Israel’s launch of the attack, with the Jewish state preparing itself for an immediate Iranian missile response.
“Following the State of Israel’s preemptive strike against Iran, a missile and drone attack against the state of Israel and its civilian population is expected in the immediate future,” Katz said in a message blasted out to Israelis.
Explosions have been reported in Tehran and in areas where Iranian nuclear facilities are located. Images and footage of the explosions have circulated widely on social media. It is not yet known if there are any casualties.
The move comes after President Trump said earlier Thursday that he still believed in the possibility of a diplomatic solution to Iran’s nuclear buildup. Talks had been tentatively scheduled to resume in the coming days.
“We remain committed to a Diplomatic Resolution to the Iran Nuclear Issue! My entire Administration has been directed to negotiate with Iran. They could be a Great Country, but they first must completely give up hopes of obtaining a Nuclear Weapon. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” Trump posted on Truth Social on Thursday afternoon.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. had no involvement in the Israeli operation.
“Tonight, Israel took unilateral action against Iran. We are not involved in strikes against Iran and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region,” Rubio said in a statement.
“Israel advised us that they believe this action was necessary for its self-defense. President Trump and the Administration have taken all necessary steps to protect our forces and remain in close contact with our regional partners. Let me be clear: Iran should not target U.S. interests or personnel.”
On Thursday evening, the long-anticipated Israel strikes began, targeting the Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear sites and other key military facilities. The objective of Operation Strength of a Lion is to end the Iranian nuclear threat once and for all, as well as to destroy, as much as possible, the Islamic Republic’s ability to continue to wage war against the Jewish state via its proxies, Hamas, Hizballah, and the Houthis. The entire state of Israel was on emergency alert; the Israeli Home Front Command issued instructions to all Israeli citizens to comply with guidelines that would be issued as part of “preparations for a significant threat.”
Almost immediately after the air strikes began in Tehran, the propaganda war also entered a new phase. The Iranian military posted on X: “Remember, we didn’t initiate it.”
Ah, but it did. The Islamic Republic of Iran initiated this Israeli strike on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas operatives, funded and directed by the Islamic Republic of Iran, brutally tortured and murdered 1,200 Israelis. The Islamic Republic of Iran initiated this Israeli strike when its leaders regularly screamed “Death to Israel” (as well as “Death to America”) and repeatedly vowed to destroy Israel. As recently as May 17, the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Khamenei, declared: “The Zionist regime, which is the dangerous and lethal cancerous tumor of this region, must undoubtedly be removed, and it will be.”
In fact, the Islamic Republic of Iran initiated it by regarding Israel as an enemy from its earliest days. The Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who founded the Islamic Republic in 1979, replaced the Israeli embassy in Tehran with an embassy of “Palestine.” He decreed that the last Friday of the Muslim fasting-and-feasting month of Ramadan would henceforth be known as Al-Quds Day. Al-Quds is the name that modern-day Arabs and Muslims use for Jerusalem, and Al-Quds Day from its inception was the occasion for an orgy of hatred for Israel, jihadist saber rattling, and declarations that the Jewish state would soon be completely destroyed and a new genocide of the Jews would begin.
Additional footage claimed to show the results of Israeli strikes tonight against the Natanz Nuclear Facility in Central Iran. pic.twitter.com/dmYoOOrs5K
Secondary explosions observed at the site of an Israeli strike earlier in the Northwestern Iranian city of Piranshahr, near the border with Iraq. pic.twitter.com/rv6NHY0tuf
This is a good time to remind people that just because someone has posted a video to Twitter doesn’t make it true, or current. Old videos get recycled as new war footage by the unscrupulous all the time…
Update 10: LiveMap: “Israeli military radio – Israel has carried out five waves of strikes against Iran so far. Channel 13 Israel, citing sources, reported: The Air Force has launched hundreds of raids inside Iran since the start of the military operation.”
Update 11: LiveMap: “Najaf base in Kermanshah” struck… “Armed Forces Commander Mohammad Bagheri” killed…”Revolutionary Guards camp in the western Iranian city of Borujerd” hit.
Update 12: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit:
Breaking: Ali Shamkhani, Supreme Leader Khamenei's right hand man, was eliminated pic.twitter.com/pvYzWwV498
It’s no secret that when leftists carry out widespread “peaceful protests,” a whole lot of non-peaceful riots, arson and looting ensue, especially if they’re happening in Democrat run cities where they know public officials sympathetic to their cause-of-the-week will keep police away and give them “space to destroy.”
Texas Governor Greg Abbott isn’t putting up with such nonsense, and is nipping it in the bud…
As riots erupt in cities like Los Angeles and protests targeting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are planned for this weekend, Gov. Greg Abbott is deploying the Texas National Guard across the state to deter potential violence and maintain order.
“Texas National Guard will be deployed to locations across the state to ensure peace & order,” Abbott posted on social media. “Peaceful protest is legal. Harming a person or property is illegal & will lead to arrest. [Texas National Guard] will use every tool & strategy to help law enforcement maintain order.”
Under both the Texas Constitution and federal law, governors have broad authority to activate their state’s National Guard in response to emergencies, including civil unrest. In his role as commander-in-chief of the Texas National Guard when not federalized, Abbott can deploy troops to assist law enforcement, protect property, and respond to threats to public safety.
“The State of Texas stands ready to deploy all necessary personnel and resources, including Texas Department of Public Safety troopers, to uphold law and order across our state,” Abbott’s press secretary, Andrew Mahaleris, told Texas Scorecard earlier this week. “Peaceful protests are part of the fabric of our nation, but Texas will not tolerate the lawlessness we have seen in Los Angeles. Anyone engaging in acts of violence or damaging property will be swiftly arrested and held accountable to the full extent of the law.”
After one demonstration earlier this week in Austin that turned destructive, Abbott noted that more than a dozen protesters were arrested.
“Peaceful protesting is legal. But once you cross the line, you will be arrested. FAFO,” Abbott posted.
Abbott’s approach stands in sharp contrast to that of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has opposed efforts by President Donald Trump to bring in federal troops or National Guard units to restore order in cities such as Los Angeles. Newsom has called such deployments provocative and unnecessary, even as violent protests and property destruction continue nightly across the state.
Meanwhile, Republican attorneys general across the country, including Texas’ Ken Paxton, are supporting Trump’s deployment of the National Guard.
“If you set police cars on fire, throw Molotov cocktails at law enforcement, and loot businesses, you must be held accountable,” posted Paxton on X. “We stand with law enforcement, we support President Trump’s action, and we will not let chaos take hold in our states.”
Seems entirely logical. So why don’t Democratic governors take similar precautions to prevent “peaceful protests” from turning into the usual riot, arson and looting sprees we keep seeing over and over again?
Simple: Many Democrats want to see the riots happen. From Ferguson to Minneapolis to the current LA riots, Democratic office holders seem to sympathize with far left goals and seem perfectly happy to let those riots sweep across their city in bursts of revolutionary violence.
What they hope to accomplish by letting such violence flourish I leave as an exercise for the readers…
Just like in 1992 or 2020, another bout of “mostly peaceful protest” in a Democrat-run city has turned into a multi-day spree of rioting and looting. So here’s a roundup of leftwing riot news from the pro-illegal alien felon riots in Los Angeles and elsewhere:
The mayor of Los Angeles is imposing a nighttime curfew to curtail the continuing anti-ICE riots and combat looting and vandalism amid the chaos.
L.A. Mayor Karen Bass (D.) announced a curfew beginning at 8 p.m. Pacific time in downtown Los Angeles and lifting at 6 a.m. She warned violators that law-enforcement officers would arrest them.
“I issued a curfew starting tonight at 8pm for Downtown Los Angeles to stop bad actors who are taking advantage of the President’s chaotic escalation,” Bass said.
“If you do not live or work in Downtown L.A., avoid the area. Law enforcement will arrest individuals who break the curfew, and you will be prosecuted.”
Bass and California Governor Gavin Newsom (D.) have faced criticism for allowing the riots against Immigration and Customs Enforcement to get out of hand and for taking a soft-handed approach. Both Democrats have attacked President Trump and his administration for quickly sending in the National Guard to quell the violence after local law enforcement was overwhelmed.
“If I didn’t ‘SEND IN THE TROOPS’ to Los Angeles the last three nights, that once beautiful and great City would be burning to the ground right now,” Trump said Tuesday morning on Truth Social.
Trump and Newsom have exchanged heated rhetoric over Newsom’s handling of the rioting and Trump’s decision to quickly intervene. Newsom has cast Trump as an authoritarian, wannabe dictator for mobilizing the National Guard to stop the violence.
How dare Trump enforce public order and deport illegal alien felons?
In the coming days, you’re going to see an enormous effort by the Democrats and large swaths of the media to declare that if U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had never tried to enforce immigration law in Los Angeles, the city would not be beset by so much widespread violence and unrest this past weekend. Implicit in that argument is the idea that Los Angeles city and county are so primed for violence, such a powder keg of anarchic malcontents, that the U.S. government must simply throw up its hands and concede that it cannot enforce immigration law there. You see, this reflects how the likes of Governor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass approach governing — when a task is too difficult, they just don’t even make the attempt.
In the minds of the progressive Democrats who run the city and county of Los Angeles and the state of California, ICE efforts to arrest and deport those who have entered the country illegally are unpopular among their constituents and, therefore, must be illegitimate.
That is not how it works, of course.
I sometimes think that news organizations in Los Angeles don’t want to give their audiences and readers a clear picture of what’s actually happening in their city. Here’s the opening sentence of an article published online by the Los Angeles NBC affiliate Friday afternoon: “A group of people were seen outside of a business named Ambiance in the Fashion District of downtown Los Angeles.”
Hey, remember those basics of journalism, the who, the what, the when, the where, the why, and sometimes the how? Are we just not doing any of that anymore?
The next sentence reads, “Essayli tells NBC4 that the FBI was working along with other federal agencies to serve a search warrant, which were [sic] signed by a judge, because they have probable cause to believe this employer is using fictitious documents for some of its workers.”
There’s nothing indicating to readers that “Essayli” is Bilal A. “Bill” Essayli, the U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, the chief federal prosecutor for the region.
Mayor Karen Bass issued a statement Friday afternoon declaring, “We received reports of federal immigration enforcement actions in multiple locations in Los Angeles. As mayor of a proud city of immigrants, who contribute to our city in so many ways, I am deeply angered by what has taken place. These tactics sow terror in our communities and disrupt basic principles of safety in our city. My office is in close coordination with immigrant rights community organizations. We will not stand for this.”
Throughout the day, Bass issued one statement after another that kept referring to “immigrants” — refusing to even acknowledge the distinction between legal immigrants and illegal immigrants.
California Governor Gavin Newsom issued a statement Friday contending, “continued chaotic federal sweeps, across California, to meet an arbitrary arrest quota are as reckless as they are cruel. Donald Trump’s chaos is eroding trust, tearing families apart, and undermining the workers and industries that power America’s economy.”
What makes these law enforcement actions “chaotic” and “reckless”?
The following morning, ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons contended that an angry crowd of Los Angeles residents had assaulted federal agents, and the Los Angeles Police Department had an inexplicably delayed response:
As rioters attacked federal ICE and law enforcement officers on the L.A. streets, Mayor Bass took the side of chaos and lawlessness over law enforcement.
Our brave officers were vastly outnumbered, as over 1,000 rioters surrounded and attacked a federal building. It took over two hours for the Los Angeles Police Department to respond, despite being called multiple times. The brave men and women of ICE were in Los Angeles arresting criminal illegal aliens including gang members, drug traffickers and those with a history of assault, cruelty to children, domestic violence, robbery, and smuggling.
The protest was outside the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building. The headquarters of the Los Angeles Police Department is three-tenths of a mile away, an eight-minute walk.
If you are a Californian, the current LA riots are an example of your tax dollars hard at work.
The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Right—CHIRLA—is one of the key players in fomenting the violent response to immigration enforcement actions. It’s an LA-based nonprofit with a… pic.twitter.com/PSzSsdu0hg
Another downtown Los Angeles press conference on Friday featured speakers from Unión del Barrio and Centro CSO, Facebook video shows. Unión del Barrio’s Ron Gochez told his audience about the need to resist ICE “by any means necessary.”
“If we organize, we can kick their asses out of every single ghetto, every single barrio, anywhere where our people are,” Gochez said, drawing applause.
“Who gives a damn about legality, when these people have their boot to our neck,” Gochez said, referencing immigration law. “We have … every single obligation, moral, historical, we have every reason to defend our people, to defend our community, to defend our families by whatever means necessary.”
Unión del Barrio describes itself as “entirely self-financed through membership dues, community contributions, and local fundraising” on its website, while Centro CSO says it is a member-funded grassroots group. The organizations did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.
Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)
The Los Angeles chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) helped spread SEIU’s graphic about CHIRLA’s Friday press conference on X. “Citizens who know their rights can disrupt and slow ICE incursions, as well as pressure local authorities to take action,” another Friday X post from the group reads. The DSA chapter did not respond to a request for comment.
Snip.
The 50501 Movement, formed in response to the second Trump administration, promoted the protests on Bluesky throughout the weekend, including the Friday 4 p.m. gathering. 50501 National Press Coordinator Hunter Dunn posted about being personally among the protesters.
LAPD did the meme and called the leftwing arson and looting sprees “mostly peaceful.”
More mostly peaceful: “Illegal alien charged with attempted murder for throwing Molotov cocktail at officers in LA riots.”
The Other McCain looks at the left’s current love for illegal alien criminals, and reaches back into history to remember Sweden-Kampuchea Friendship Association.
Voters elected Donald Trump for a reason, and if Chris Van Hollen, Will Bunch or anyone else thinks they’re going to fool the electorate into sharing their sympathy for Kilmar Abrego Garcia, they’re simply delusional. But we have often seen the Left enthralled by such delusions.
Jan Myrdal, Marita Wikander, Gunnar Bergström and Hedvig Ekerwald were Swedish socialists who enthusiastically supported Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, a widespread sentiment in Sweden at the time:
The Indochinese revolutionary movements enjoyed widespread support in Swedish society, particularly among supporters of the Swedish Social Democratic Party. When the Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh [in April 1975] and expelled its inhabitants, 15,000 Swedes greeted their victory by spontaneously celebrating in the center of Stockholm.
The arrival of Year Zero in Democratic Kampuchea was, as we now know, the beginning of one of the most murderous tyrannies in all human history. The best estimates are that Pol Pot’s communist regime killed about 1.5 million people, nearly 25% of the country’s population.
The first widely noticed account of the ongoing massacre in Cambodia was published by the Reader’s Digest in February 1977, and immediately sparked widespread controversy. The Left, having embraced the Communist regime in Cambodia, denounced the Reader’s Digest account as “propaganda.” To quote Wikipedia:
According to Joel Brinkley, “Khmer Rouge apologists [among Western academics] easily outnumbered those who believed a tragedy was under way.” . . .
[H]uman-rights activist David Hawk . . . claimed that the West was indifferent to the atrocities taking place in Cambodia due to “the influence of anti-war academics on the American left who obfuscated Khmer Rouge behavior, denigrated the post-1975 refugee reports, and denounced the journalists who got those stories.”
In the prevailing worldview of the intelligentsia, the Communists must be good, because America was bad. Therefore, reports about atrocities in Cambodia (based on accounts from those who had escaped) must be false or exaggerated. Such was the background of the August 1978 trip to Cambodia by Myrdal, Wikander, Bergström and Ekerwald as a delegation from the Sweden-Kampuchea Friendship Association (SKFA). They spent two weeks as guests of the Khmer Rouge, even having dinner with Pol Pot, and “returned to Sweden where they undertook a speaking tour and wrote articles in support of the Democratic Kampuchea regime.” Bergström expressed the belief that, under the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia could become “a very special model for the third world … an ideal society with no oppressors.” And this, keep in mind, was a brutal regime that killed a higher percentage of their national population than any known dictatorship in all human history. Among the victims were Marita Wikander’s husband. She had married a Khmer Rouge diplomat, who returned to Cambodia in 1977. During the SKFA trip to Phnom Penh in 1978, she asked to see her husband. The request was denied. It wasn’t until years later that she learned he had been executed by the regime shortly after his return to Cambodia. Such an “ideal society“!
The analogy to current liberal politics is obvious enough. Viewing Trump as the Sum of All Evils, liberals reflexively attack any policy advocated by Trump. Therefore, if Trump wishes to deport criminal illegal aliens, liberals must defend criminal illegal aliens: “Free Kilmar!”
It just wouldn’t be a “mostly peaceful” leftwing riot without widespread looting:
Evidently looting Apple stores is now so common that iPhones now have a store setting that sets alarms and tracking off if stolen, rendering them useless to looters:
Los Angeles is grappling with a wave of violence and destruction that has left local business owners reeling, as captured in a viral TikTok video from NewsNationNow, posted on 10 June 2025.
The video features a furious LA business owner, Monty, owner of Bargain2Perfumes, whose store was ransacked during protests against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids. ‘This is ridiculous.
This doesn’t look like they’re protesting ICE or anything… Just looting the stores,’ he told NewsNation, echoing sentiments shared across X posts.
Yet, California Governor Gavin Newsom has repeatedly called these events ‘peaceful protests,’ a stark contrast to the reported £80 million ($107 million) in property damage since 6 June 2025, including looted stores, torched vehicles, and vandalised buildings.
So President Trump chose criminal deportation, law and order, and tough on crime.
California Democrats Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass chose lawsuits and states’ rights.
Who do you think won this latest round? I’d say Mr. Trump 10, Democrats zero.
It’s just hard to believe that removing illegal alien criminals who have committed sexual assault and murders would be attacked by one of our two major political parties.
But that’s the state of play among Democrats. Shame on Governor Newsom in particular.
And good for Senator Fetterman for being just about the only Democrat to stand up and say that peaceful free speech is good, but violent protest is not. And Democrats should not be defending violent protests.
And Mr. Trump’s border tsar, Tom Homan, is absolutely right that Mr. Newsom and Ms. Bass should be thanking ICE for making California a safer place.
In an interview with Greta Van Susteren, Mr. Homan said, “What angers me the most” is that “people aren’t looking at the facts. ICE arrested significant public safety threats in the last few days in L.A. We arrested a murderer — a Vietnamese national who murdered teenagers at a graduation party.”
He added that “we arrested several sexual predators — child sexual predators — we arrested people convicted of armed robbery, arrested people for domestic violence and all sorts of public safety threats.”
And as protesters and trouble makers turn to violence to oppose ICE’s safety actions, remarkably the Democrats chose to support the rioters committing arson, and looting, smashing police cars, throwing rocks at ICE agents, spitting on the American flag and setting it on fire, and spray-painting “Death to America” graffiti on government buildings.
Mr. Trump’s rapid action to protect public safety and avoid a truly vast insurrection by bringing in the National Guard and Marines was a stroke of genius.
The chaotic anti-ICE riots aren’t just confined to California; anti-ICE agitators have taken their lawlessness to the East Coast. On Saturday, New York City joined Los Angeles in becoming a flashpoint for radical protests, as demonstrators clashed with law enforcement after a mob of nearly 150 people tried to block federal officials from conducting an immigration raid in Manhattan.
More than 20 anti-ICE protestors were arrested after interfering with immigration authorities trying to carry out lawful operations. The activists were actively obstructing the removal of criminal illegal immigrants. At one point, the mob attempted to block a white van from exiting the area. It successfully forced it back into the building’s parking garage after agitators threw themselves at the vehicle. The New York Police Department (NYPD) arrived and started pushing protesters back onto the other side of the street. Authorities warned protestors to disperse or get arrested
Even here in Austin, protestors were demonstrating the usual left-wing idea of “peaceful”:
While the Austin protest was largely peaceful, it ended with a dozen arrests and a standoff between demonstrators and state and local police who deployed tear gas and pepper ball projectiles against a smaller group of protesters after they graffitied a federal building and threw rocks at officers.
Snip.
Laiba Khan, an organizer with the Austin chapter of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, said the group organized the protest specifically because of the Trump administration’s response to the LA demonstrations.
Quoting that not because it’s important, but just so I have the tags ready the next time these Austin commies burn something else down.
Trace Gallagher on Fox News sums out just how bad these riots look for Democrats:
“If the goal is to lose elections in perpetuity, they have devised the perfect plan.”
The Babylon Bee appreciates illegal alien rioters making things easier for ICE:
Remember to stay away from riot areas, and make sure your carry gun is properly oiled and loaded…
“Turning Texas blue” is an idée fixe for Democratic Party operatives, and it’s easy to see why. Securing Texas’ 40 (and soon to be 43 or 44) electoral votes would go a long way toward ensuring presidential election dominance for the donkeys. Indeed, one (of many) big driving factors behind the headless Biden Administration opening the border was to secure enough illegal alien votes via amnesty to do just that. (Ironically, what it actually seem to do was turn the Rio Grande Valley red and add millions of Hispanics to the Trump coalition.) But the idea never goes away, and now moneybag social justice funder George Soros is trying to turn Texas blue.
A Democrat-aligned political group backed by billionaire George Soros is once again setting its sights on Texas, aiming to flip the reliably red state with a new multimillion-dollar campaign.
According to a Wall Street Journal report, Texas Majority PAC—bankrolled heavily by Soros—has launched a new initiative dubbed “Blue Texas,” partnering with the Texas Democratic Party and several county parties to organize volunteers, recruit candidates, and boost voter turnout ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
Campaign finance records show Soros gave $2.1 million to Texas Majority PAC in 2024 and another $1 million in April.
The move marks the latest in a long line of efforts by Democrats to make inroads in Texas, a state Republicans have dominated for decades. Despite shifting demographics and repeated national predictions of a “blue wave,” Democrats haven’t won a single statewide race in Texas since 1994.
Soros and his political allies tried a similar approach in the last election cycle—pouring millions into Texas Majority PAC in an attempt to build a Democrat ground game—but came up short. In 2024, Republicans not only held their ground but made gains in both the Texas House and Senate. President Donald Trump, meanwhile, won 12 of the state’s 14 border counties and defeated Kamala Harris by nearly 14 percentage points.
I covered last year’s Soros funding attempts here.
The Texas Majority PAC, which describes its mission as growing the Democrat majority and winning statewide elections, is hoping for a different result this time.
Organizers say they’ll hold rallies across the state in June and visit more than two dozen cities in July to recruit candidates.
Rallies. Yeah. That will do the trick. I do wonder if they don’t actually mean “riots,” since that seems to be what Soros is best at funding.
Their long-term goal is to make Texas a competitive battleground state by 2032, when a new round of redistricting could further increase the state’s electoral significance.
“If a win is on the table in 2026, we don’t want to leave it there by not being organized,” Katherine Fischer, deputy executive director of Texas Majority PAC, told WSJ.
A win for Democrats is “on the table” in the same sense that a World Series championship is “on the table” for the Colorado Rockies in 2026: It’s theoretically possible, but no one is betting that way.
But past efforts like Battleground Texas—formed over a decade ago with similar ambitions—have largely failed.
Battleground Texas was a particularly spectacular flameout. And that was staffed with Obama retreads, i.e. the last actually successful Democratic presidential campaign that didn’t rely on mysterious 3 AM ballot dumps. What election experts are they going to bring in to turn Texas red? The supergeniuses behind the Kamala Harris campaign? What pearls of wisdom are Soros-funded cadres going to dispense on their presumably benighted Texas counterparts? They need to burn more police cars? They need to buy more Palestinian flags?
Texas Republicans are quite lucky nationwide liberals seem clueless about how to wisely allocate money to boost Democrats in Texas. Just think if that $160+ million Bobby Francis “Beto” O’Rourke wasted on his two losing statewide campaigns had been channeled into effective grassroots organizing instead of ill-fated media ad buys. Texas might look a lot more purple right now. Of course, that assumes it’s even possible for Democrats to carry out effective grassroots organizing, instead of shoveling money into the insatiable maws of hordes of social justice locusts looking to foment their own brand of self-serving revolution.
I think that literally just Scott Presler, by himself, has moved the electoral needle more than all the millions of dollars national Democrats have dumped into Texas all this century combined…
It’s one of those days when I’m not particularly interested in writing on a particular topic, or that I’ve already written about the current hot topic, so here’s a History Matters video on how Stalin outmaneuvered all his potential Soviet rivals.
In the game of revolutionary violence, the most ruthless seem to invariably come out on top…
First up: A Ukrainian F-16 scores its first recorded air-to-air kill of the war against a Russian Su-35:
The Su-35 was shot down over Kursk Oblast, indicating Ukrainian planes are now more comfortable operating near the front line than previously.
A lot has been made of a fourth generation fighter taking down a fifth generation fighter, but America’s kit has pretty much always been better than Soviet/Russian kit, and the Su-35 is more of a “4.5 Generation” fighter anyway, and suffers from a lack of stealth and high maintenance costs.
Reportedly French special forces units are operating as volunteers fighting against Russian forces in Kharkiv:
Caveat: Reporting from Ukraine has lots of detailed information about how particular battles in the war unfold, almost none of which can be independently verified.
They also hit a Russian fuel train in Zaporizhia:
Looks like it blew up real good…
But that’s not the only rail attack! They also evidently used rail grain cars to hit a train transporting tanks and other military vehicles:
Information is sketchy, and a location hasn’t been released or pinpointed yet. But using grain cars to launch drones to attacks targets on the same train is going to have Russian counterintelligence crawling out of their skins yet again. They already had units stopping shipping trucks after Operation Spiderweb, and now they have to do the same for train cars? That’s going to have Russians slowing down their own logistics all over the country hunting secret drone nests.
Russia has lost 996,150 troops in Ukraine since the beginning of its full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022, the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces reported on June 8.
The number includes 1,120 casualties that Russian forces suffered just over the past day.
According to the report, Russia has also lost 10,911 tanks, 22,748 armored fighting vehicles, 51,225 vehicles and fuel tanks, 28,892 artillery systems, 1,410 multiple launch rocket systems, 1,183 air defense systems, 414 airplanes, 337 helicopters, 39,651 drones, 28 ships and boats, and one submarine.
Such estimates should always be treated with grains of salt.
That’s the news I found worth rounding up. Feel free to share anything you think I missed in the comments.
JUST RELEASED: Follow the Money Behind the No Kings Rally 
I tracked funding from federal sources to final recipients,… 
(@AMAZlNGNATURE) 
(@VividProwess) 
