Laura Loomer: “Zelensky Is a Self Hating Nazi Jew.”

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Loomer sat down for about 40 minutes last week with Zelensky, conducted the first interview with Ukraine’s new acting defense minister.

“They view me as an extension of the Trump administration, even though I don’t work for the Trump administration,” Loomer said in an interview.

Pro-Ukraine groups have long highlighted churches destroyed in Russian airstrikes and the persecution of some Christians in Russia.

They have organized trips to Ukraine for conservative activists, pastors and influencers. They once took out a billboard with a Bible verse across from Speaker Mike Johnson’s Louisiana church.

But they have struggled to make inroads with Trump, his closest aides and key right-wing voices. Witkoff, Trump’s friend and special envoy, kept traveling to Russia for meetings with Putin but not to Ukraine.

“Ultimately, the president is the only person who matters,” said Melinda Haring, a senior adviser at the pro-Ukrainian nonprofit Razom for Ukraine, where she directs outreach to the Trump administration.

While many MAGA figures have shown “personal support and sympathy” for Ukraine’s cause, Ms. Haring said, they “can’t do anything about it because Trump hasn’t changed his mind.”

That is why Haring and other Ukraine supporters are now hoping that Ms. Loomer’s visit represents a turning point. Loomer said she called Trump twice from Ukraine. On social media, she said she “fell for Russian propaganda” when she once called Zelensky “a self hating Nazi Jew.”

There are some signs Trump may be giving more heed to Ukraine’s arguments as Russia’s invasion nears the four-and-a-half-year mark, but little to signal a decisive change in course.

The president said in early July that he would allow Ukraine to manufacture Patriot air-defense systems, then told The Financial Times this week he was “not sure” he would do it. He has maintained his sympathetic approach to Putin.

Loomer, who first rose to prominence in right-wing circles with her anti-Muslim and homophobic invective, proved her personal influence with Trump last year when she apparently persuaded the president to fire six of his national security aides. This year, she has aligned herself with Trump further by defending his decision to attack Iran.

#loomer #trump #zelensky #ukraine #russia

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It was the right-wing divide over Iran and Israel, Loomer said, that precipitated her change of heart on Ukraine.

Two of her biggest online nemeses, Carlson and the podcaster Candace Owens, have doubled down on their Russia-friendly stances as they criticized the Iran war and the U.S. alliance with Israel.

Owens’s visit to Putin’s marquee conference in St. Petersburg, Russia, in June, she said, added to her determination to go to Ukraine.

“I realized all these people had something in common and that’s that they all aggressively advocate for Russia in the Russia-Ukraine war,” Loomer said. “I started to think to myself, what else are they lying about?”

Loomer, who has nearly two million followers on X, has said her work is funded by donors whom she declines to identify.

She said in a May interview that she was finalizing her “pitch deck” for her meetings with donors. She said on X that the cost of her trip to Ukraine was “supplemented by private Americans who were worried about my safety.”

An American reached out to her in late May, according to Loomer, offering the opportunity to travel to Ukraine. The individual, whom Loomer declined to identify, worked in the nonprofit sector and had led numerous trips to Ukraine for people interested in learning more about the conflict.

His group, the Ukraine Freedom Project, ran a “Putin is a loser” online advertising campaign highlighting Russia’s battlefield human losses, the crippling of much of its Black Sea Fleet and the country’s struggling economy.

“Nobody wants to be associated with a fool or a loser,” he said. “Trump likes winners, he likes to be associated with winners and Ukraine is the winner right now.”

A month and a half later, Loomer was in Ukraine, rebutting the anti-Ukraine narrative she had once amplified.

She met with Rabbi Moshe Reuven Azman, one of the country’s leading Jewish religious figures, whose son was killed fighting Russian forces. “The rabbi told me his dead Jewish son didn’t fight alongside Nazis,” Loomer, who is Jewish, wrote on social media.

“Trump needs a language with which he can sell Ukraine to the American people,” said Lindsley, who has been living in Ukraine since the start of the war and has been advocating for more U.S. support. “And Laura Loomer is giving him that.”

#loomer #trump #zelensky #ukraine #russia

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Operation Rollout: Four Leaks, Zero Launch Orders

In the space of six hours Friday, four different outlets published four different versions of the same war that hasn't started yet. CBS reported the US and Israel are planning to bomb Iranian power plants and refineries, with strikes possible throughout the weekend, CBS News reports. The Wall Street Journal reported Trump ordered a broader offensive meant to force Tehran into submission, lasting several days, WSJ reports.

Axios reported the president is merely "seriously considering" energy strikes and hasn't given final orders, Axios reports. CNN, meanwhile, reported the scope and targets remain unclear and the whole thing could still be scrapped, while separately noting accelerated prep to hit Iran's nuclear sites, including the long-untouched Pickaxe Mountain facility. Four leaks, four militaries apparently fighting four different wars, and not one confirmed target.

The Pentagon's contribution to the clarity was a single sentence: "The Department of War is locked and loaded, ready to execute the President's directives at a moment's notice."

That's not a war plan, that's a vending machine waiting for someone to insert a coin. At Camp David, the Cabinet reportedly split over the plan, with some advisers pushing back even as the White House insisted the authorization had already been granted, just maybe not for energy targets specifically, which is a genuinely impressive way to authorize a war without agreeing on what it's a war against.

Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt filled the vacuum with certainty nobody asked for: "As President Trump said at his Cabinet meeting today, the United States will win, and Iran will not have a nuclear weapon under his watch."

She added that "President Trump is not going to stand by and allow this terrorist behavior to occur. Iran will continue to pay until they come to the table in, what President Trump deems, a meaningful way." Note the phrasing, victory is guaranteed, but the terms of victory are whatever the president decides to deem, whenever he decides to deem it.

Gulf states, for their part, are reportedly the ones now urging Washington to escalate rather than restrain, which tells you something about how the region's calculus has shifted after five months of this.

Four newsrooms, one Pentagon, one press secretary, and still nobody can say what's actually getting bombed, or when, or why. Is this a military campaign, or a leak-testing exercise with live ammunition on standby?

#Iran #Israel #Trump #Pentagon #MiddleEastWara

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Iran's Menu of Retaliation: Everyone's Pipeline Is on the List

Iran's top security officials spent Saturday publishing something unusual. It reads like a customer list of who gets hurt if threatened US and Israeli strikes actually happen.

Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, issued the warning. Continued US naval pressure "will both tighten the lock on the Strait of Hormuz and close other straits and bottlenecks," he said.

"The global economy, the energy market, and American voters will pay the price," according to Iran's Fars News Agency. Note who's footing the bill in that sentence. Not Washington's decision-makers. Whoever's stuck paying at the pump in November.

A senior security official went further with Tasnim. He called US media reports of imminent strikes "a kind of madness." Then he immediately described, in detail, the madness Iran has planned in response.

"We have prepared a comprehensive plan to respond that includes targeting the vital infrastructure of Israel and the US energy infrastructure in the region and we are ready for it," he said.

He cited Iran's performance in "the 40-day war" as proof of both "ability and will," APA reports.

Denouncing the premise while confirming the plan is a neat trick. It works exactly once before everyone just calls it a threat.

Then IRGC-linked Fars News did something new. It published an actual target list.

The list named Saudi Arabia's Ghawar field, the UAE's Ruwais refinery and Zakum field, Qatar's Ras Laffan LNG terminal, Kuwait's Burgan field, and Bahrain's Sitra refinery, Iran International reports. It also named Israel's Tamar and Leviathan gas fields. That's a first.

Israel hadn't appeared on Iran's target lists since the American strikes began five months ago. Every Gulf monarchy that has spent years hedging between Washington and Tehran just got told, in print, exactly what a miscalculation costs them. Israel just got added to a list it had managed to stay off of.

So the message lands everywhere at once. To Riyadh and Abu Dhabi: don't assume neutrality buys immunity. To Washington: don't assume this stays contained to Iranian soil.

To Israel: welcome to the list. Iran didn't have to fire a shot to make half the region recalculate its risk exposure this weekend. Who exactly gets to sit this one out?

#Iran #StraitOfHormuz #Israel #GulfStates #EnergySecurity

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Eleven Icebreakers and a Golden Photo Frame

President Trump wanted more icebreakers than Russia has. He didn't consult a strategic review to decide how many.

He consulted his own frustration. "We only have one," he complained back in 2020. "Russia has 40." Russia actually has 56 now.

China has five. The Coast Guard's own 2023 assessment said the US needed four or five.

The number Trump landed on was 11, The New York Times reports.

The deal traces back to a golf tournament. Finland's president, Alexander Stubb, played alongside Trump in March 2025 and gave him a photo of an icebreaker in a gold frame.

Months later, Trump called Stubb late one night with a bigger ask. "I'm not going to buy the used one, because it's too old," Trump reportedly told him.

"I want more new ones instead." Eleven ships, worth almost $7 billion, split between shipyards in Finland and the US. No competitive bidding. A waived law banning foreign-built national security vessels.

Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Kevin Lunday put it plainly: "The number 11 came directly from the president. This was the president's number and the president's decision."

The public interest exemption meant the Coast Guard never had to prove urgency or justify the number.

It just had to send Congress a heads-up letter, after the deal was already announced. Shelby Oakley of the Government Accountability Office wasn't impressed.

"We haven't seen any information or analysis to justify the 11 or to assess the long-term affordability of these decisions," she said.

She compared the Coast Guard to "a lottery winner who spends all their money buying the mansion, and then goes broke once they realize they don't have the money to maintain it."

Nobody has funded the crews or infrastructure to actually operate 11 ships. That bill comes later.

Even Senator Ted Cruz, celebrating a Texas shipyard groundbreaking, couldn't quite explain the number with a straight face. He reached for Spinal Tap instead.

"As a child of the '80s, I have to admit, my own personal theory is the 'Spinal Tap' theory: Ours goes to 11," he said, then added, "Although I doubt that was the president's motivation."

One senator quoting a mockumentary about aging rockers chasing irrelevance through excess, to explain a $7 billion no-bid defense contract.

Is that a joke about the deal, or the most honest thing anyone in Washington has said about it?

#Trump #Icebreakers #Finland #NoBidContracts #Arctic

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America's Missile Shield for Israel Just Filed a Capacity Warning

The general running US military operations in Europe quietly told the Pentagon something remarkable this week: he doesn't have enough ships to keep doing the job he's been doing.

Gen. Alexus Grynkewich warned that without another Navy destroyer, he'll have to choose defending the American homeland over defending Israel from incoming ballistic missiles, The Washington Post reports.

The Pentagon declined to comment. European Command didn't respond. Nobody at the Israeli Embassy could even be reached to comment on the possibility that their air defense might soon be someone else's afterthought.

This isn't a hypothetical resource squeeze, it's a confirmation of what Pentagon assessments already found back in May: American weapons, not Israeli ones, have been doing most of the actual intercepting of Iranian missiles headed toward Israel, with THAAD batteries and naval interceptors carrying the load far more than Israel's own air defenses.

The US hasn't just been backing Israel up. It's been the primary contractor, and the contractor is now filing a formal notice that capacity is maxed out.

The fleet math tells the story on its own. Two destroyers are in the Mediterranean covering Israel. Three more sit in Rota, Spain, some sidelined by maintenance backlogs from the war's pace.

Meanwhile an armada near Iran, two carriers and at least 15 warships, is busy enforcing Trump's blockade of Iranian ports, and another destroyer is in the Red Sea fending off the Houthis. Everyone wants a piece of the same finite Navy, and the Navy is running out of pieces to give.

Tom Karako of CSIS summed up the position bluntly: "Being on a wartime footing is going to take a toll in terms of readiness and munitions inventory levels. Now the question is: what's the strategy here?"

That question has no answer yet, and it's landing in an election year where Republicans are already nervous that gas and grocery prices from this war will cost them in November.

So the arrangement now on the table is this: keep blockading Iran, keep patrolling the Red Sea, and hope Israel doesn't need the cavalry on the same night the homeland does. What happens the first time both alarms go off at once?

#Israel #Iran #Pentagon #USNavy #MiddleEastWar

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Europe's Solidarity Has a One-Month Expiration Date

Spain says the crisis is over. About 50,000 people crossed into Ceuta since Thursday, more than 48,000 were sent back to Morocco within 48 hours, and by Saturday morning overnight crossings had fallen to zero. The death toll now stands at 67.

Spain's response to that number is a 500-metre floating barrier at the Tarajal breakwater, sitting a few dozen centimetres above the water where people drowned trying to climb over it.

Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska used the calm to rehabilitate Morocco's image in real time. "Morocco isn't any threat to Ceuta or the rest of Spain, it's a fully reliable partner," he said, adding there had been no intelligence warning of a mass crossing.

Sixty-seven bodies say the intelligence apparatus missed something. He blamed smuggling networks and social media rumors instead, which is true and also conveniently spares everyone from asking harder questions about warning signs.

The real spectacle, though, is happening between EU capitals, not at the fence. Twenty-two EU governments demanded an emergency meeting on border security, which reads less like solidarity and more like a formal complaint against Spain. Italy didn't wait for a meeting. It just suspended Schengen with Spain for a month.

Sanchez fired back on social media: "In the current international context, the EU cannot afford this kind of selfish, polarising and unlawful reaction."

Meanwhile Spain, of all EU states, has spent the past year granting legal status to over half a million undocumented migrants already living there, a policy it insists had nothing to do with tens of thousands of people rushing a fence in the same window.

So the bloc that prides itself on open internal borders just watched one member unilaterally wall off another over a crisis at the actual external border, the one Frontex exists to help with.

Sixty-seven people are dead, Rome didn't bother responding to a request for comment, and the EU's answer to a humanitarian emergency is a continental shrug followed by a punitive travel ban between two of its own members. What exactly does European solidarity mean if it evaporates the moment the news gets ugly?

#Spain #Ceuta #Morocco #EU #Schengen

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The Attorney General Trump Doesn't Actually Need Confirmed

Todd Blanche's nomination for attorney general is dead. That's according to the senator whose vote it needs.

"Despite comments as late as yesterday that the fund is dead, President Trump clearly intends to resurrect the payout pot for punks either by inappropriately establishing another bogus fund or pushing Congress to vote for a bill that the majority of Republicans in the Senate would be against," Sen. Thom Tillis posted Saturday.

"It's unfortunate that Todd Blanche, who I consider qualified for the job, will not be confirmed because of this reversal."

The whiplash here is genuinely impressive. The fund is meant to compensate people Trump considers victims of political persecution. Trump said it was dead as of Thursday.

By Saturday morning he'd revived it on Truth Social. "Todd Blanche was a voice of reason! It will immediately be back on the table, and I will get it done," he wrote.

Tillis and Cornyn have refused to move Blanche until the fund is dead in writing. Not dead in a tweet. Now they're watching the tweet get walked back before the ink dried.

The real twist is what Trump floated earlier in the week as his backup plan. If Tillis and Cornyn won't confirm Blanche, just keep him as acting attorney general.

Do that until both senators leave office in January. That's not a workaround for a stalled nomination. That's a workaround for the Senate itself. Run out the clock on two elected obstacles rather than negotiate with them.

Somehow this counts as the more restrained option compared to the fund fight.

So the country may spend the next several months with an acting attorney general nobody voted to confirm. All over a slush fund that's been declared dead and resurrected twice in one week.

Blocked by two senators who'll be gone in five months anyway. Is this a confirmation fight, or just a very expensive waiting game to see who gets tired first?

#Trump #AttorneyGeneral #Senate #Tillis #Blanche

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Trump Calls Off a Potential Attack on Iran 🇮🇷


Trump said Saturday night that he has called off a potential attack on Iran due to progress in negotiations between the two nations.

There had been indications from some U.S. officials that an attack on Iran's infrastructure was possible, all in an effort to get the Iranians to agree to the U.S.' terms in ceasefire negotiations.

What they're saying:

“I have agreed, for the future benefit of the WORLD and, likewise, the survival of a successful and prosperous Iran, to cancel the attack, subject to being able to rapidly make a DEAL,”

the president wrote on his Truth Social account.

Trump added that Iran and “other Middle Eastern Countries” had asked the U.S. to hold off on attacking “in that the perimeters of a deal had been agreed to.”

“This would include the Immediate, Complete, and Total OPENING OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT, and an end to Iran's nuclear threat,”

he wrote.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Trump spoke on Saturday, with MBS expressing concern over the strike plans, Barak Ravid and Marc Caputo reported hours before the president's social media post.

Other regional powers, including Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Pakistan, have also pressed the U.S. and Iran to de-escalate.

An attack on Iran's infrastructure and energy sites would escalate the war that the president has repeatedly pressed pause on in order to negotiate with Iran, only for strikes to resume when diplomacy appeared stalled.

#trump #calledOff #attack #iran

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#trump #hegseth #whitehouse #updates #patriot

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#trump #greenland #phone

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Now in Spokane, people are leaving the city, a horror movie (Washington, USA)

#spokane #washington #USA

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🕊 A Turning Point: Talks With Iran Are Taking Place Today

President Donald Trump said that talks with Iran are taking place today, but declined to set a deadline for reaching an agreement. He previously stated that he had canceled an imminent military strike in hopes of quickly securing a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and resolve the standoff over Tehran's nuclear capabilities.

For its part, Iran said it is close to reaching an agreement with Oman on a new route through the Strait of Hormuz. The announcement comes after an oil tanker reported an explosion nearby on Sunday, underscoring the continued volatility of the strategic waterway.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said that both the vessel and its crew were safe.

Maritime tracking data showed that traffic through the strait slowed on Monday following reports of attacks on commercial shipping.

Further south, however, two tankers carrying Saudi oil successfully passed through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait despite threats by the Houthis against oil exports in the Red Sea.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei told state television that Tehran and Oman were close to agreeing on a new maritime route.

“We will now reach an agreement on a route acceptable to both sides — neither the northern route nor the southern route — but one that respects the sovereign rights of both sides and protects our national interests and security.”

However, he stressed that such an agreement would not mean the full reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and that it “will in no way return to the status it had before February 28,” the day the war began.

On Saturday, President Trump wrote on social media that Iran and other Middle Eastern countries had requested additional time to finalize an agreement that would lead to the “immediate, complete and total reopening” of the Strait of Hormuz and “the end of the Iranian nuclear threat.” He urged Tehran to reach an agreement quickly.

Speaking aboard Air Force One on Sunday, Trump said he decided against ordering new US strikes on Iran after consultations with Gulf allies, including Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia, as well as a phone call with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

“I said to the Crown Prince, ‘What would you prefer? Would you rather we did that or not?’”

“They said they would much prefer an agreement rather than an attack, because you don't know where these attacks lead.”

Trump has repeatedly warned that the conflict could escalate, while simultaneously allowing more time for diplomacy. His latest decision marked another shift after several days of threats from both sides.

The conflict has spread from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea and even affected parts of Egypt.
Iran largely closed the Strait of Hormuz — a route through which around 20% of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas normally passes — contributing to higher energy prices and broader inflationary pressure.

Following Trump's comments, Brent crude fell by more than 4% during the opening of Asian trading, dropping to around $83 per barrel.

Trump has argued that preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons justifies short-term increases in fuel prices, but the economic impact has increased political pressure to find a diplomatic solution.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also held telephone talks with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan and Pakistan's Army Chief Asim Munir regarding diplomatic efforts, according to Iranian state media.

Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen said Israel and the United States maintain close security and intelligence coordination regarding developments across the region.

He added:

“With or without an agreement, and regardless of external commitments, if Iran tries to revive its nuclear program or advance its ballistic missile industries, we will be there. We will act, and we will strike.”

#Trump #Iran #Hormuz #Israel #Diplomacy

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A Deal With Mediators and No Second Party

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi reportedly agreed overnight to a compromise drafted by Qatari and US mediators for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, according to two diplomats cited by Israel's Channel 12.

His approval was framed as one of the reasons Trump called off the weekend strike,

The technical detail sells it: ships enter the Gulf through Iranian waters, and exit through Omani waters. That's oddly specific for something that might not exist.

Oman signed off too, but with a catch. Muscat wants confirmation that Araghchi's yes actually speaks for the Revolutionary Guards, not just the foreign ministry, and Qatari mediators are still working the phones to secure that buy-in.

In other words, the deal celebrated in Washington is still waiting on approval from the people who actually hold the keys to the strait. Al Jazeera's Mehjoob Zweiri, director of the Gulf studies center at Qatar University, added the more cautious framing: "Iran received a proposal from the United States that could lead to a reduction in current tensions, and Tehran is studying it seriously." Studying. Not signing.

And then Tehran's own state media pulled the rug out entirely. Iran's semi-official Fars News quoted a member of the negotiating team calling the Israeli media report "false," with a military source insisting the strait stays closed to any vessel that doesn't coordinate with the Revolutionary Guards.

So within hours of Trump citing this agreement as his reason for standing down, Iran's own press denied the agreement exists.

A deal that has mediators, diplomats, and a press release, but apparently no confirmed signature from either government involved. Trump built a strike cancellation on top of it anyway.

What exactly did Washington agree to stop bombing over?

#Iran #StraitOfHormuz #Trump #Araghchi #MiddleEastWar

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Tehran: We Never Asked, We Never Agreed, Hormuz Isn't Opening

Iran spent Sunday demolishing every sentence of Trump's Saturday night announcement, one clause at a time.

Mohammad Marandi, a former adviser to Iran's negotiating team, put it in five words on X: "By now everyone knows this is fake news. Trump backed down." No hedging, no diplomatic softening.

Iranian military officials went further. They called Trump's version of events "merely another lie and a desperate attempt to blackmail Gulf rulers and pressure them through threats," according to Mehr News Agency.

A source close to Iran's negotiating team told Fars News flatly: "No agreement has been reached on reopening the Strait of Hormuz."

Iran's Kayhan newspaper, a mouthpiece for the regime, mocked the whole spectacle: "The U.S. president backed down after a week of fabricated statements. The same repeated script," as reported by Yeshiva World News.

So Trump announced a deal. Iran announced the deal doesn't exist. Both statements can't be true, and only one side gets to control the strait.

Here's the part that actually explains everything: Trump has pulled this exact move before, in May, in July, and now again in August, always with Gulf states or Iran supposedly begging him to stand down at the last minute.

Every single time, the pattern is identical: threaten total force, then discover a miraculous last-minute request for restraint. Iran doesn't even bother denying the strikes were coming. It just denies that it was the one who asked for a pause, and it denies that a favor was owed in return.

Trump gets to look magnanimous. Iran gets to look undefeated. Nobody has to admit what actually happened, because nobody agrees on what actually happened. That's not a ceasefire. That's two governments negotiating the story, not the strait.

#Iran #Trump #StraitOfHormuz #Marandi #MiddleEastWar

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Who Actually Made the Call

The request that got dressed up as an Iranian olive branch actually came from Riyadh. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman called Trump on Saturday.

He raised concerns about the plan for massive new strikes on Iran, and he asked for clarity on what exactly Washington intended to hit, according to Axios.

A second source told Axios he went further and "urged Trump to de-escalate and refrain from launching the strikes."

The Saudi Press Agency's official version was more diplomatic: bin Salman stressed "the necessity of prioritizing the language of dialogue to de-escalate, and the importance of exerting all possible efforts to achieve a calmness that paves the way for diplomatic solutions," per SPA.

Qatar and the other Gulf states have their own reason to lean on Washington: their oil and gas facilities sit exactly where Iran has threatened to strike back.

Iran didn't call. Tehran spent the same 24 hours calling Trump's version of events a lie. The country that actually picked up the phone and got results was the one whose oil fields are within range of Iranian missiles, not the one supposedly begging for a ceasefire.

This is the same choreography that played out in May, when Trump credited Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE with talking him out of a strike, only for Gulf officials to tell the Wall Street Journal they hadn't even been briefed on any imminent attack.

Whether the Gulf call happens before or after the decision seems almost beside the point. What matters is that a call happened, and Trump needed one to happen, because "I got talked out of it by powerful allies" plays a lot better than "the Pentagon doesn't want to burn through more Patriot interceptors."

Saudi Arabia flew combat missions alongside American jets days ago. Now it's telling the same White House not to pull the trigger again.

That's not friendship. That's a landlord telling a tenant to stop lighting fires in a building they both own.

#Iran #Trump #SaudiArabia #MBS #StraitOfHormuz

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Who Cashed In on Minute 99

Wall Street has a name for this now: TACO Trade, short for Trump Always Chickens Out.

Every single time he's threatened Iran with annihilation and then called it off, the market pattern has been identical, stocks jump, oil drops, and someone makes money on the whiplash.

When Trump scrapped strikes back in June, the Dow gained nearly a thousand points and the Nasdaq jumped over 3% in a single session, Yahoo Finance reported. Interactive Brokers strategist Steve Sosnick summed up why: "We've heard something like this at least 30 times before without any obvious progress, but stock traders reliably rally whenever that carrot is dangled before them. It is a sign that traders are still more fearful of missing a rally than they are of a sustained pullback."

Saturday night's cancellation was reportedly the third time a strike got pulled at the literal last minute, and Israeli commentators online noted it landed close to the deadline once again.

Meanwhile, on the home front, Israeli officials and commentators pushed back hard against Telegram channels distributing unverified reports of hospital readiness alerts, arguing such leaks serve no purpose except handing the enemy a free intelligence gift, since official emergency updates already come through the Home Front Command and the IDF spokesperson.

So, Trump threatens apocalypse, then cancels it. Markets don't ask why. They just buy the dip, because thirty false alarms in, the only rational move left is to treat the fake war like a recurring, profitable weather pattern.

Reservists get mobilized on rumor. Traders get rich on repetition. Guess which group actually reads the fine print before the next false alarm.

#Iran #Trump #TACO #Israel #StockMarket

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Pressure From Three Directions At Once

Everyone agrees Gaza's ceasefire roadmap is fragile. Nobody agrees on who's breaking it. American officials went first, sharply criticizing Israel for continuing targeted killings just as Hamas agreed to disarm. "These are the fruits of eight months of negotiations intended to demilitarize Gaza.

Why continue the killings now and give them an excuse to back out?" the sources said, according to World Israel News. Then came the line that dropped all pretense of diplomacy: "He killed three innocent children, making Israelis look like bloodthirsty savages."

Hamas moved fast to cash in. Politburo member Ghazi Hamad told AFP, "Israel's escalation in Gaza today confirms that Israel doesn't want to reach an agreement," per the Malay Mail.

Nickolay Mladenov, the Board of Peace's own high representative, didn't pick a side by name but didn't need to: "Two days of strikes across Gaza have killed civilians and destroyed medical supplies that people depend on," coming right after "intense efforts by the Board of Peace and the mediators… to bring the Palestinian factions in Gaza to agree to a Roadmap," he wrote, cited by Anadolu Agency.

And then the fourth voice flips the entire script. Netanyahu's own spokesperson, Doron Spielman, told Reuters that Israel has shared "serious security concerns" with Washington about the disarmament plan itself, insisting "disarming means physically giving up the weapons. Nothing less," per the Independent.

While all that diplomatic maneuvering played out, Defense Minister Israel Katz went on Channel 14 and skipped the diplomacy entirely. On Iran, he offered a threat and a scoreboard in the same breath: "If Iran attacks Israel, it will suffer a crushing blow," he said, adding that Israel has already "prepared Iran and all its proxies to 80 to 90 percent," in the interview aired Sunday night.

On the security zones, he recycled the line his ministry has repeated for months: the IDF "will not withdraw from the security zones in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza," as JNS reported.

And on Lebanon, he read off the receipts like a man closing a quarterly report: "Twenty-four Lebanese villages that were hundreds of years old… we destroyed all of the buildings," he said of communities he claims served Hezbollah.

So while Washington accuses Jerusalem of sabotaging the deal, and Jerusalem tells Washington the deal itself worries them, Israel's own defense minister is on live TV citing a village count and a percentage score against Iran, no ceasefire talk required. Four institutions, four messages, zero coordination. Who's actually negotiating peace here, and who's just keeping score?

#Gaza #Israel #Hamas #Iran #Lebanon #Netanyahu

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