Trump to attend NATO summit days after
US strikes on Iran and a ceasefire in question
Posted By: sunset, 6/24/2025 11:04:18 AM
President Donald Trump departed early Tuesday for the NATO summit in The Hague, Netherlands, just days after he made the decision to launch strikes on Iranian nuclear sites and hours after he announced a ceasefire in the Israel-Iran conflict. It will be the first time Trump will face European U.S. allies since returning to the White House in January. On his way to the summit, Trump questioned a core tenant of the alliance as he refused to commit to Article 5 -- the agreement of collective defense among NATO nations. "Are you committed to Article 5 of NATO," Trump was pointedly asked. "Depends on your definition..."
people like this.
people like this.
people like this.
people like this.
people like this.
people like this.
Below, you will find ...
Most Recent Articles posted by "sunset"
and
Most Active Articles (last 48 hours)
Most Recent Articles posted by
sunset"
A federal judge in Texas granted a temporary reprieve to two small money services operations that had argued that a new Trump administration policy intended to ensnare drug traffickers was instead driving them out of business. The ruling, handed down late Tuesday, marked the third time a court had rejected a new Treasury Department rule that calls for increased scrutiny of financial service businesses along the southern border, which are already highly regulated. The government in March required businesses in certain ZIP codes in Texas and California to report any transaction larger than $200, along with personal identifying information about the customer.
Previously unseen damage is also visible near tunnel entrances at Iran's Isfahan Nuclear Technology Centre after it was hit by the US. Meanwhile, there are signs work is already underway to fill in craters at the Natanz enrichment complex in the wake of US strikes.
A leaked US intelligence document has cast doubt on the overall impact of the strikes. Media coverage of its conclusions prompted an angry response from President Donald Trump.
Other new satellite images reveal previously unseen damage at a university in north-east Tehran and an area adjacent to a major airport west of the capital.
Russia’s war in Ukraine has drained Western ammunition stocks. Despite years of claimed weapons ramp-ups, NATO’s arms manufacturing is still not refilling those stocks apace, let alone making it to Ukraine in needed mass. The West has come to recognize that these shortages are due to the offshoring of explosives production. But a flurry of new investment incentive schemes from NATO members into defense industries is not yielding results that compare with Russia’s alarming success at arming itself, even beset with sanctions. Western arms makers are scrambling to buy up or expand factory space to fill in for, particularly, Chinese explosive chemical imports.
After failed attempts on at least two fronts to complicate or delay oral arguments, President Donald Trump's lawyers returned to federal court on Tuesday to once again appeal the $83 million defamation judgment that longtime advice columnist E. Jean Carroll won at the start of 2024. Presiding for the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals were Senior U.S. Circuit Judge Denny Chin, a Barack Obama appointee, and U.S. Circuit Judges Sarah Merriam and Maria Araújo Kahn, both Joe Biden appointees. Following an en banc rehearing denial in Trump's appeal of a $5 million civil jury verdict(snip)the panel also declined the president's request to push back scheduled oral arguments.
President Donald Trump departed early Tuesday for the NATO summit in The Hague, Netherlands, just days after he made the decision to launch strikes on Iranian nuclear sites and hours after he announced a ceasefire in the Israel-Iran conflict. It will be the first time Trump will face European U.S. allies since returning to the White House in January. On his way to the summit, Trump questioned a core tenant of the alliance as he refused to commit to Article 5 -- the agreement of collective defense among NATO nations. "Are you committed to Article 5 of NATO," Trump was pointedly asked. "Depends on your definition..."
Israel goes all in on regime change in
Iran, but refrains from killing Khamenei
- analysis 8 replies
Iran, but refrains from killing Khamenei
- analysis 8 replies
It’s official without being official. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has put Israel all in to try to help facilitate regime change in Iran. He is not saying it 100% explicitly, and the IDF is very carefully avoiding saying it, but on Monday, for the first time, the IDF attacks on Iran seemed to be overwhelmingly against the regime’s internal political power versus its nuclear or external military power. Israel’s air force took the time out to bomb a symbolic clock in Iran about destroying Israel – but nevertheless, a clock. It bombed the Basij headquarters. The Basij is an awful group of two million hooligans who kill their own people
The Supreme Court said Monday the Trump administration may deport criminal migrants to South Sudan or Libya even if those countries are deemed too dangerous for visitors.
By a 6-3 vote, the conservative majority set aside the rulings of a Boston-based judge who said the detained men deserved a “meaningful opportunity” to object to being sent to a strange country where they may be tortured or abused.
“All of these aliens had committed heinous crimes in the United States, including murder, arson, armed robbery, kidnapping, sexual assault of a mentally handicapped woman, child rape, and more,” Trump's Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer told the court.
LA riots, years of protests lead Republicans
to seek federally criminalizing blocking traffic 16 replies
to seek federally criminalizing blocking traffic 16 replies
In the wake of anti-ICE protesters and rioters trapping drivers in Los Angeles and other cities in recent days, Republican lawmakers want to make blocking streets a federal crime. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., will seek this week to make it a federal crime to obstruct or create intentional traffic. The "Safe and Open Streets Act" is a direct response to the "radical tactics of anti-ICE protesters who have intentionally blocked roads and highways across the country," Tillis said. Lawbreakers could face fines or up to five years in prison. Under California law, it is a misdemeanor to "willfully and maliciously obstruct the free movement of any person on any street,.."
California violates the constitutional right to own guns by limiting purchases to one every 30 days, a federal appeals court ruled Friday. It was the latest in a series of decisions reassessing the state’s firearms restrictions since the Supreme Court set new limits on gun-control laws four years ago. The state contended its law, was a safety measure. But the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the restriction unduly interferes with the right to keep and bear arms.
“We doubt anyone would think government could limit citizens’ free-speech right to one protest a month, their free-exercise right to one worship service per month, or their right to be free
A sprawling 2,560-bed facility in the high desert town of California City (Kern County) is poised to become the largest migrant detention center in California under a new agreement between Immigration and Customs Enforcement and private prison contractor CoreCivic.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the federal government entered into a six-month contract with CoreCivic, with $10 million in “initial funding.” The facility operated as a state prison until March 2024, when California ended its lease as part of an initiative to eliminate the use of private prisons. The move comes amid a national push by the Trump administration to expand ICE detention capacity from 41,500 to 100,000 beds nationwide.
The Supreme Court on Friday reinstated long-standing lawsuits brought by American victims who were killed or injured in terrorist attacks in the Middle East against Palestinian authorities.
The justices unanimously upheld a 2019 law passed by Congress that explicitly permits these legal actions to proceed against the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority. The lawsuits stem from multiple attacks, including several from the early 2000s that killed 33 people and injured hundreds, and a 2018 incident in which a U.S.-born Israeli settler was fatally stabbed by a Palestinian outside a shopping mall in the West Bank.
The Interior Department plans to remove or cover up all “inappropriate content” at national parks and sites by Sept. 17 and is asking the park visitors to report any “negative” information about past or living Americans, according to internal documents. It’s a move that historians worry could lead to the erasure of history involving gay and transgender figures, civil rights struggles and other subjects deemed improper. Staff at the National Park Service were instructed to post QR codes and signs at all 433 national parks, monuments and historic sites asking visitors to flag anything they think should be changed, from a plaque to a film at a visitor’s center.
Most Active Articles (last 48 hours)
The US military strikes on three of Iran’s nuclear facilities last weekend did not destroy the core components of the country’s nuclear program and likely only set it back by months, according to an early US intelligence assessment that was described by four people briefed on it.
The assessment, which has not been previously reported, was produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s intelligence arm. It is based on a battle damage assessment conducted by US Central Command in the aftermath of the US strikes, one of the sources said.
Enjoying a surge of support from progressive and younger voters, democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani is a big step closer to becoming the first Muslim mayor of the nation's most populous city. While the Associated Press had yet to project a winner in New York City's Democratic Party mayoral primary Tuesday night, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo saw the writing on the wall, telling supporters at an election night gathering that Mamdani "won."
Mamdani, a 33-year-old state assembly member from Queens who is originally from Uganda, topped the former three-term governor and nine other candidates in a crowded primary field in an election that was determined by ranked-choice voting.
This is a fair question from Matt Continetti, who recites some of the relevant quotations before posing it. I'll add to the list. President Bill Clinton described a nuclearlzed Iran as intolerable and signed the Iran Nonproliferation Act of 2000, "which authorize[d] him to take punitive action against individuals or organizations known to be providing material aid to weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs in Iran." President George W. Bush intoned in 2008 that "permitting the world’s leading sponsor of terror to possess the world’s deadliest weapon would be an unforgivable betrayal of future generations."
Little-known Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani upset former Governor Andrew M. Cuomo for the Democratic nomination for mayor of New York City on Tuesday night. The governor conceded the race shortly after 10 p.m., though ranked-choice voting totals have yet to be tabulated.
Self-described democratic socialist Mamdani led Cuomo by more than seven percentage points late Tuesday night, with almost 90 percent of the votes counted. Mamdani had 43.5 percent of the vote, with the former governor trailing at 36.3 percent when he conceded.
“Tonight was not our night,” Cuomo said in his remarks. “Tonight was Assemblyman Mamdani’s night.”
In the dwindling days of his run for Gracie Mansion, Zohran Mamdani has picked a strange priority: publicly funding gender change treatments for minors. If elected, the New York Sun reported, Mamdani plans to spend $65 million on “gender-affirming care.” He also promised to investigate New York hospitals that have stopped providing the services, fearing the Trump administration’s wrath, and create an “Office of LGBTQIA+ Affairs” at City Hall. That Mamdani decided gender changes for teenagers deserved his campaign’s attention typifies his problem as a candidate — and danger to the city.
The Iranian foreign ministry admitted that their nuclear facilities were “badly damaged” by U.S. strikes over the weekend after reports surfaced about a low-confidence U.S. intelligence assessment suggesting otherwise.
Numerous outlets reported Wednesday on an early intelligence assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency suggesting the U.S. strikes only set Iran’s nuclear program back a few months. The White House strongly disputed the intelligence assessment and criticized the leakers within the intelligence apparatus.
“This alleged ‘assessment’ is flat-out wrong and was classified as ‘top secret’ but was still leaked to CNN by an anonymous, low-level loser in the intelligence community.
The former Vice President and Democratic Party’s failed presidential candidate Kamala Harris is strongly considering tossing herself into the California gubernatorial race. Quoting undisclosed sources, The Hill reported that the race has given Kamala a “renewed sense of excitement,” putting a “glimmer in her eyes.”(Snip)“She has a lot of people in her ear telling her that it makes the most sense and she can do the most good,” the source spilled. However, the outlet cautioned that Kamala has not “made a final decision yet and is still considering all her options.” Nonetheless, the former Vice President “says she has made it clear that she is not done with public service
Spain's government is preparing to block an agreement among NATO countries to raise defence spending to 5% of GDP just days out from a major summit, Spanish media has reported.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte is pushing for members of the transatlantic security bloc to boost their defence spending to 5% GDP by 2032, after US President Donald Trump declared America's allies were shirking their responsibilities.
The proposal stipulates that 3.5% of GDP should be earmarked for core military spending with a further 1.5% dedicated to broader security-related areas such as infrastructure.
Last year, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, despite being in her early 50s and having an undistinguished career before her affirmative action appointment, published a memoir.
You might be forgiven for having missed it when “Lovely One” came out. As the media politely notes, it was “briefly” on the New York Times bestseller list and is now going for half price on Amazon. That is mostly to be expected of the ghostwritten memoir of an obscure judge.
Except that Jackson received a $893,750 advance for her memoir and is now reporting $2 million in profits last year. These would be record numbers for a Supreme Court Justice’s biography from a book
Trump administration officials on Tuesday slammed a leaked preliminary intelligence assessment of the damage done to Iran’s nuclear facilities by weekend US airstrikes that the president has touted as a massive success.
The classified Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) bomb damage assessment — deemed a “low confidence” estimation of the effectiveness of Saturday’s strikes on the Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz sites — reportedly determined that Iran could bring its nuclear program back online as quickly as within one to two months, according to Fox News.
On the high end, estimates indicate that Iran could restart uranium enrichment within a year, according to those who viewed the DIA report.
New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s plan to create a network of city-owned grocery stores to drive down food costs is facing pushback from the industry, with the head of a Manhattan-based grocery chain threatening to sell or close the business if Mamdani is elected. John Catsimatidis, the CEO of grocery chain Gristedes, found fault with Mamdani’s plan, saying the business couldn't compete in the market if there are city-run supermarkets. "If the city of New York is going socialist, I will definitely close, or sell, or move or franchise the Gristedes locations," Catsimatidis told FOX Business. He will
Mamdani’s victory would signal seismic
shift in national politics and test for
socialist movement 17 replies
shift in national politics and test for
socialist movement 17 replies
NEW YORK — Zohran Mamdani has surged so much in his upstart New York City mayoral campaign, he stands to win one of the biggest political prizes in America. With that victory comes a major test for his socialist movement. Mamdani still trails Andrew Cuomo in most polls but has significantly closed the gap heading into Tuesday’s Democratic primary. A win would shock the Democratic Party, as it grapples with its national 2024 losses, and inspire like-minded lefties to challenge establishment figures. It would also shine a spotlight on Mamdani and the Democratic Socialists of America, forcing them to answer
Comments:
Reminding them that collective defense has collective cost; and that the cost is to boost their defense spending to 5% GDP.