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At long last, the F-35 has scored its first true air-to-air kill in the aircraft’s history during Operation Epic Fury. A squadron of F-35s reportedly took down multiple MiG-29s soon after the strikes against Iran took place, marking a pivotal moment for the new family of jets.
The F-35 had yet to score a kill against an adversary aircraft, with both American and Israeli operators only having used them to target drones up to this point. No footage of the fight has been released to date, and it is unclear how many MiGs the F-35s have eliminated.
The UK has agreed to a US request to use British military bases for "defensive" strikes on Iranian missile sites, Sir Keir Starmer has said.
But the prime minister said the UK had learned lessons from the "mistakes of Iraq", and was not involved in the initial strikes on Iran and "will not join offensive action now".
Sir Keir said the basis of the decision to accept the US request was the "collective self-defence" of allies and protecting British lives, accusing Iran of pursuing a "scorched-earth strategy".
The BBC understands the US is likely to use RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean for strikes on Iranian missile sites.
It was hardly necessary to consult Nostradamus to predict that the Democrats, who profess to abhor oppressive authoritarian theocracies, would denounce President Trump’s decision to topple the government of Iran — the very definition of such a regime. Nor was it a surprise that they downplay or simply ignore the obvious elation with which the Iranians themselves greeted the long overdue demise of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It is striking, however, that the Democrats fail to see that their reflexive attacks on Trump for taking action (snip) reinforces the public perception that their party is weak and out of touch.
Dozens 'dine-in,' rally at immigrant-owned
restaurants in northeast Minneapolis to
protest ICE replies
restaurants in northeast Minneapolis to
protest ICE replies
Although there’s been a reduction in the number of ICE agents in Minnesota, community activists say the fear of ICE still prevails and restaurants continue to lose business. That’s why dozens of people gathered to eat at several immigrant-owned restaurants along Central Avenue in northeast Minneapolis on Sunday afternoon. Some of the businesses included El Taco Riendo, Holy Land and The Golden Nuts. “The reason that we wanted to do this action was to show support for immigrant businesses that are really struggling even after the supposed draw-down,” Jae Yates of Twin Cities Coalition for Justice. Yates was one of
President Trump on Sunday posted an update on the situation in Iran, trolling the Iranian Navy after US forces executed strikes in Iran that killed dozens of top officials and the Iranian Supreme Leader.
“I have just been informed that we have destroyed and sunk 9 Iranian Naval Ships, some of them relatively large and important,” Trump said.
“We are going after the rest — They will soon be floating at the bottom of the sea, also!”
“In a different attack,” he added, “we largely destroyed their Naval Headquarters.” Trump then trolled the Iranian Navy, writing, “Other than that, their Navy is doing very well!”
The suspect gunman who killed two people at a bar in Texas early Sunday was wearing a hoodie that said “Property of Allah,” and another shirt with an Iranian flag design, the Associated Press confirmed.
The mass shooter that left two dead and 14 others wounded has been identified as 53-year-old Ndiaga Diagne. Diagne was naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in Senegal and lived in Pflugerville, Texas.
According to the FBI, the shooting was “potentially an act of terrorism.” FBI agent Alex Doran told reporters on Sunday “there were indicators on the subject, and in his vehicle, that indicate a potential nexus to terrorism.”
The conflict between the United States, Israel and the Islamist regime in Iran could result in terror blowback across Europe, German security officials have warned.
The chairman of the Bundestag’s Parliamentary Control Committee (PKGr), which oversees Germany’s intelligence services, warned on Sunday in comments reported by Die Welt that “retaliatory measures” by pro-Iranian regime terrorists, including “sleeper cells in Europe”, could not be ruled out.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Ministry of Interior said, “The Iranian regime has repeatedly demonstrated in the past that it carries out its terror beyond its own borders.
A former New York City resident and U.S. citizen immigrant originally from Senegal, opened fire at a crowded Austin, Texas, bar, killing three people and injuring 14 others. Sources have told media the attack may have been motivated by recent U.S. strikes on Iran. {UPDATE: Shooter Pictured Below Fold}
The shooter was found to have a Quran in his vehicle and was wearing what is described as Islamic attire. The FBI is probing the incident as a potential act of ideologically driven terrorism. When police arrived at the scene, they confronted a man with a gun and then “returned fire, killing the suspect,” Davis said. According to EMS Chief Robert Luckritz,
In early January, President Trump warned Iran’s Islamist government that if it killed peaceful civilians protesting the economy’s collapse, “the United States of America will come to their rescue.”
In a post on Truth Social, he declared, “We are locked and loaded and ready to go.”
Days later, when it became clear authorities and their henchmen were slaughtering thousands of unarmed protestors, Trump delivered another warning– — and a promise. After urging “Iranian Patriots” to keep protesting and “save the names of the killers and abusers, he said, “They will pay a big price” and added ominously:
“Help is on its way.”
That help arrived Saturday
Washington — President Trump said Sunday that he is willing to speak with the new leadership in Iran following the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country's longtime leader, who was killed in Israeli airstrikes on Saturday.
"They want to talk, and I have agreed to talk, so I will be talking to them. They should have done it sooner. They should have given what was very practical and easy to do sooner. They waited too long," Mr. Trump told The Atlantic in a phone call on Sunday morning. A senior White House official said later in the day that the president will speak with the Iranians "eventually,"
Operations are still underway over and around Iran on Sunday, and the United States and Israel are well on their way to not only owning the skies over Iran, but the waters around it. On that morning, President Trump took to his Truth Social account to inform us that at least nine Iranian navy craft have now found new berths at the bottom of the ocean. [Tweet]
The president wrote:
I have just been informed that we have destroyed and sunk 9 Iranian Naval Ships, some of them relatively large and important. We are going after the rest —
U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth declared that while the United States did not start the conflict with Iran’s regime that began some half a century ago, it is certainly going to finish it.
In a single-day operation, the United States and the Israeli military managed to eliminate multiple top Iranian officials, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei himself. Hundreds of American soldiers, thousands of Israelis, and tens of thousands of Persians have died thanks to the fanatical jihad cruelty of the collapsing Iranian regime — now “Epic Fury” has finally brought much-deserved retribution to the genocidal jihadis.
Hegseth released his official statement Saturday evening on X. “Overnight, on President Trump’s orders,
Americans woke up Saturday morning to the news that the United States and Israel unleashed a coordinated strike, dubbed Operation Epic Fury, leveling key Iranian military sites and taking out much of the regime’s top brass. Among the dead is none other than Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
It was a good day for the Middle East and the world.
Except for the Democrats.
Almost instantly, Democrats in Washington started howling, calling the strikes “illegal,” “dangerous,” and “reckless.” They claimed that President Donald Trump didn’t consult Congress. You’d think they’d be cheering the demise of one of the world’s most dangerous tyrants, but no. For the left, this wasn’t a victory against terror.
Three US service members have been killed in action as part of US military operations against Iran, the US Central Command said in a statement on Sunday. These are the first confirmed deaths since the US began launching strikes against Iran on Saturday.
Five additional personnel have been reported seriously wounded as part of Operation Epic Fury, the US military said. Authorities have not yet publicly identified the three soldiers who were killed. While announcing the military action targeting Iran, Donald Trump cautioned that “the lives of American heroes may be lost, and we may have casualties. That often happens in war”.
On Sunday, Israel and the US carried out another round
The gunman who killed two people and wounded 14 others at a packed Austin, Texas, bar was possibly motivated by the US attacks on Iran, sources told The Post.
The FBI is investigating the shooting as a possible ideologically motivated act of terrorism, the sources said.
The killer, who is a US citizen from Senegal, had a Quran in his car and clothing described as Islamic garb when he opened fire on Buford’s Backyard Beer Garden [snip]
The gunman has a history of arrests in Texas, and is believed to have lived in New York City from 2000 to 2008, the sources said.
Nine people were injured following an early Sunday mass shooting at a music venue in Cincinnati.
The shooting happened shortly before 1 a.m. Sunday at 4343 Kellogg Avenue, the address matching the location of Riverfront Live on Google Maps. Police say they think all nine victims will recover.
There is no description of the suspect(s) right now, police say.
Riverfront Live is a 16-and-over music venue in the East End. The venue was hosting a birthday party that started at 10 p.m. Saturday, according to an Instagram post from DJ Fresh.
I recently came across a work of anthropology which, more than anything else I’ve read, explains the context in which the predominantly Pakistani (and most notoriously, Mirpuri) grooming gangs developed in Britain. The work is Professor Alison Shaw’s 1980s fieldwork on the Pakistani community of Oxford, which she wrote up in A Pakistani Community in Britain (1988), and subsequently revised in Kinship and Continuity: Pakistani Families in Britain (2000). Like most academic books, it is absurdly expensive to buy, but the revised edition, which is the one I have, is available to download on Anna’s Archive.
ESG opponents say Vanguard’s settlement
docs will prove companies colluded to
push climate agenda replies
docs will prove companies colluded to
push climate agenda replies
The Vanguard Group’s decision to sign an agreement resolving a multistate lawsuit accusing investment firms of colluding to harm the coal industry contains an item that opponents of ESG are very excited about. It could confirm the lawsuit’s accusations — or prove them entirely false.
Among other items in its settlement agreement, Vanguard agreed to hand over communications it had with other parties.
Will Hild, executive director of Consumers’ Research, said in a webinar Friday that the documents Vanguard is going to provide will demonstrate that the asset managers were colluding, as the lawsuit accuses them of doing.
A portrait of embattled former U.S. Senate Leader George Mitchell has been stripped from the Maine State House, a move that the state's top investigative journalist calls possibly Mitchell's ultimate indignity. Maine legislative officials have been under pressure to take the Democrat ex-leader's portrait down from the wall where it has hung for 14 years. (snip) The portrait's removal comes just three weeks after Mitchell resigned as chairman of the Mitchell Institute following the recent unsealing of documents related to the Jeffrey Epstein sex abuse case.
Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — a polarizing hardliner who became the face of Tehran’s nuclear defiance and incendiary anti-Israel rhetoric — was reportedly killed in Israeli airstrikes during Saturday’s strikes inside Iran.
A report by the Israeli media outlet Ma’ariv stated that Ahmadinejad was under house arrest at the time and was killed in a targeted strike on his home.Ahmadinejad served as Iran’s sixth president from 2005 to 2013, rising from relative obscurity as mayor of Tehran to defeat establishment figure Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in a surprise 2005 runoff.
Critics at home and abroad described him as a confrontational ideologue whose economic management —
President Trump addressed the housing affordability crisis in his State of the Union address last week. “Another pillar of the American dream that has been under attack has been home ownership,” he said in the speech before Congress.
He shared the story of a hard-working mom who was outbid on 20 different homes by “gigantic investment firms that bypassed inspection, paid all cash, and turned all those houses into rentals, stealing away her American dream.” Trump said this story is now sadly common in America, but the administration is eager to fix it through an executive order —
Iran Raises the ‘Red Flag of Revenge’
Over Jamkaran Mosque After Death of Ayatollah Khamenei replies
Over Jamkaran Mosque After Death of Ayatollah Khamenei replies
The regime of the imams is trying to show defiance after the crushing blow of Khamenei’s death.
While many observers look for ‘offramps’ for the US, Israel and Iran to cease the war that’s setting the whole Middle East on fire, signs on the ground suggest the hostilities may go on for a long time.
Following the death of its supreme spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iranians have raised the ‘red flag of revenge’ above the Jamkaran Mosque, located in the city of Qom. “According to several media reports, a red banner, which symbolizes justice and revenge in Shiite tradition, was seen atop the Jamkaran Mosque.
Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), one of Israel’s strongest supporters in Congress, expressed full support for President Donald Trump’s attacks on Iran as lawmakers reacted to “Operation Epic Fury.”
“Negotiations have never worked [with Iran],” Fetterman told Fox and Friends Weekend in an appearance Saturday morning. “Sometimes you have to take action to create peace.” He also was critical of European leaders calling for negotiations to resume.
“Why can’t we all agree that the Iranian regime has to fall?” he said. He countered Democrat criticism of the operation with “It’s about country over party.”
Earlier, the senator weighed in on X:
The strikes President Donald Trump launched against Iran Saturday are not just military operations — they are the answer to decades of prayers by Iranians who have suffered under tyranny.
And they represent the first time an American president has truly come to the rescue of the Iranian people.
I was born and raised in Iran, where my family lived under the grip of an authoritarian theocracy. Growing up in the 1980s, my classrooms were filled with anti-Western indoctrination and “Death to America” chants. Yet to most of us, America was a symbol of justice and freedom from fear.