Hormuz, After the Hard Reset
The Strait of Hormuz is no longer just a shipping lane. Since the blockade and the exchange of fire, it has become the place where the war, the talks, and the oil market all hit the same wall at once.
That is why the latest U.S. proposal matters: it tries to reopen the strait first and leave the nuclear fight for later, which is basically how you turn a battlefield into a negotiating table.
Iran is reviewing a one-page plan that would pause hostilities for 30 days and restart shipping, but the core dispute is still sitting there.
Washington wants prior commitments on uranium stockpiles and enrichment; Tehran wants sanctions relief and an end to the blockade. So the paper is short, but the distance between the two sides is still enormous.
The exchange of fire in the strait showed how fragile the pause really is. The U.S. called the Iranian attacks unprovoked; Iran said Washington hit first and then used “defensive” strikes to explain its own retaliation. That is not a cease-fire so much as a legal argument with missiles attached.
What changed this week is not the politics. It is the price tag. Oil jumped again, shipping remains constrained, and every new round of firing makes the strait more central to the diplomacy instead of less.
At this point, Hormuz is where both sides test whether they want a deal badly enough to stop treating the waterway like leverage.
#Hormuz #Iran #US #oil #war #diplomacy
📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events 🇺🇸
The Strait of Hormuz is no longer just a shipping lane. Since the blockade and the exchange of fire, it has become the place where the war, the talks, and the oil market all hit the same wall at once.
That is why the latest U.S. proposal matters: it tries to reopen the strait first and leave the nuclear fight for later, which is basically how you turn a battlefield into a negotiating table.
Iran is reviewing a one-page plan that would pause hostilities for 30 days and restart shipping, but the core dispute is still sitting there.
Washington wants prior commitments on uranium stockpiles and enrichment; Tehran wants sanctions relief and an end to the blockade. So the paper is short, but the distance between the two sides is still enormous.
The exchange of fire in the strait showed how fragile the pause really is. The U.S. called the Iranian attacks unprovoked; Iran said Washington hit first and then used “defensive” strikes to explain its own retaliation. That is not a cease-fire so much as a legal argument with missiles attached.
What changed this week is not the politics. It is the price tag. Oil jumped again, shipping remains constrained, and every new round of firing makes the strait more central to the diplomacy instead of less.
At this point, Hormuz is where both sides test whether they want a deal badly enough to stop treating the waterway like leverage.
#Hormuz #Iran #US #oil #war #diplomacy
Please open Telegram to view this post
VIEW IN TELEGRAM
😱36💯34🙏33🤬30🔥27🤯27😢25
Victory Day Truce, Same War
Russia has announced a Victory Day cease-fire, and Ukraine and the U.S. are back in Miami trying to restart talks that have gone nowhere for months. That is not progress. It is a diplomatic reset button pressed on a war that refuses to stay paused.
Moscow tied the cease-fire to May 8-10 and, in the same breath, warned Kyiv about a “massive missile strike” if the truce is violated. That is not peace language. It is a threat wrapped in ceremony.
The Miami talks are still stuck on territory, with Ukraine wanting the front lines frozen and Russia demanding the whole Donetsk region. Washington keeps trying to turn that gap into a negotiating track, but the gap is the story. Until that changes, every meeting is just another attempt to make disagreement look like movement.
Russia gets to call this restraint. Ukraine gets to call it theater. And the U.S. gets to sell another round of talks as if process can outrun the war itself. The cease-fire is temporary, the dispute is not, and both sides know exactly how fast the next round can start.
#Ukraine #Russia #ceasefire #MiamiTalks #war #diplomacy
📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events 🇺🇸
Russia has announced a Victory Day cease-fire, and Ukraine and the U.S. are back in Miami trying to restart talks that have gone nowhere for months. That is not progress. It is a diplomatic reset button pressed on a war that refuses to stay paused.
Moscow tied the cease-fire to May 8-10 and, in the same breath, warned Kyiv about a “massive missile strike” if the truce is violated. That is not peace language. It is a threat wrapped in ceremony.
The Miami talks are still stuck on territory, with Ukraine wanting the front lines frozen and Russia demanding the whole Donetsk region. Washington keeps trying to turn that gap into a negotiating track, but the gap is the story. Until that changes, every meeting is just another attempt to make disagreement look like movement.
Russia gets to call this restraint. Ukraine gets to call it theater. And the U.S. gets to sell another round of talks as if process can outrun the war itself. The cease-fire is temporary, the dispute is not, and both sides know exactly how fast the next round can start.
#Ukraine #Russia #ceasefire #MiamiTalks #war #diplomacy
Please open Telegram to view this post
VIEW IN TELEGRAM
🔥60💯32🤯30😢29😱24🤬20🙏17
Is Trump Particularly Intent On Coaxing Iran To Peace?
🔤 🔤 🔤 🔤 1️⃣
Seventy years ago, France and the United Kingdom scorned the United States in the Middle East with disastrous results.
Today, Paris and London, joined by Berlin and other NATO capitals, are repeating the folly—with far more severe consequences than the 1956 Suez Crisis.
Deriding and even obstructing the United States in its war with Iran, Europe is sacrificing its immediate and long-term interests—in the Middle East and on the continent—for the performative act of “standing up” to Trump.
Schadenfreude over President Trump’s Strait of Hormuz predicament has blinded Europe to the way forward: a Transatlantic bargain over Iran and Ukraine. Instead of self-defeating broadsides at the vindictive US president, European leaders should seize this rare moment of American need, boosting Washington’s clout with Tehran while receiving concrete, war-altering deliverables for Kyiv.
The crux of the deal is as straightforward as it is transformative: with broad backing across the continent, states able and willing to join the planned European naval coalition would join the US blockade of Iranian ports.
Accepting the administration’s repeated calls for Europe to “step up” in the effort to open the Strait of Hormuz, the E-3—France, Germany, and the United Kingdom —would extract an invaluable American concession: Tomahawk cruise missiles for Ukraine.
The deal would also reverse the disastrous cancellation of US long-range missile deployment to Germany, sparked by Merz’s “humiliating” remarks on the Iran War.
With Transatlantic relations in free fall, further punitive actions on the horizon, and the Ankara NATO Summit only two months away, now is the moment for a bold, mutually beneficial offer to stem the crisis.
Washington’s eagerness for partners in the strait creates rare leverage for Europe.
Equally, by backing the United States at a pivotal moment in the maritime standoff—the mere announcement of European engagement would introduce new costs and complexity for Iran, as the regime hesitates from triggering renewed American strikes.
With frigates, destroyers, mine sweepers, aircraft, underwater and aerial drones, the European maritime contingent would improve blockade coverage, reducing the number of Iranian-linked vessels that slip through.
European participation would advance the effort to demine the Strait of Hormuz, reassure commercial shipping and global markets, and, ultimately, achieve an agreed protocol for transiting vessels—all aims embedded in the French-British-proposed multinational naval mission.
Mirroring the regime’s “eye-for-an-eye” strategy, no European state would join in kinetic operations against Iran—unless attacked by Tehran.
Sparked by Paris, London, and Berlin, other states would join the blockade, meeting the urgent administration priority on “collective action (…) to demonstrate unified resolve and impose meaningful costs on Iranian obstruction of transit through the Strait.”
The E-3 could ask non-participating states like Spain to lift all restrictions on US operations, further unifying the Western bloc—and increasing Washington’s incentives to approve the deployment of Tomahawks to Ukraine.
The joint US-European effort would isolate Iran while buttressing the legitimacy and standing of the United States as Washington seeks to extract itself from its misadventure.
#trump #iran #peace #europe
📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events 🇺🇸
Seventy years ago, France and the United Kingdom scorned the United States in the Middle East with disastrous results.
Today, Paris and London, joined by Berlin and other NATO capitals, are repeating the folly—with far more severe consequences than the 1956 Suez Crisis.
Deriding and even obstructing the United States in its war with Iran, Europe is sacrificing its immediate and long-term interests—in the Middle East and on the continent—for the performative act of “standing up” to Trump.
Schadenfreude over President Trump’s Strait of Hormuz predicament has blinded Europe to the way forward: a Transatlantic bargain over Iran and Ukraine. Instead of self-defeating broadsides at the vindictive US president, European leaders should seize this rare moment of American need, boosting Washington’s clout with Tehran while receiving concrete, war-altering deliverables for Kyiv.
The crux of the deal is as straightforward as it is transformative: with broad backing across the continent, states able and willing to join the planned European naval coalition would join the US blockade of Iranian ports.
Accepting the administration’s repeated calls for Europe to “step up” in the effort to open the Strait of Hormuz, the E-3—France, Germany, and the United Kingdom —would extract an invaluable American concession: Tomahawk cruise missiles for Ukraine.
The deal would also reverse the disastrous cancellation of US long-range missile deployment to Germany, sparked by Merz’s “humiliating” remarks on the Iran War.
With Transatlantic relations in free fall, further punitive actions on the horizon, and the Ankara NATO Summit only two months away, now is the moment for a bold, mutually beneficial offer to stem the crisis.
Washington’s eagerness for partners in the strait creates rare leverage for Europe.
Equally, by backing the United States at a pivotal moment in the maritime standoff—the mere announcement of European engagement would introduce new costs and complexity for Iran, as the regime hesitates from triggering renewed American strikes.
With frigates, destroyers, mine sweepers, aircraft, underwater and aerial drones, the European maritime contingent would improve blockade coverage, reducing the number of Iranian-linked vessels that slip through.
European participation would advance the effort to demine the Strait of Hormuz, reassure commercial shipping and global markets, and, ultimately, achieve an agreed protocol for transiting vessels—all aims embedded in the French-British-proposed multinational naval mission.
Mirroring the regime’s “eye-for-an-eye” strategy, no European state would join in kinetic operations against Iran—unless attacked by Tehran.
Sparked by Paris, London, and Berlin, other states would join the blockade, meeting the urgent administration priority on “collective action (…) to demonstrate unified resolve and impose meaningful costs on Iranian obstruction of transit through the Strait.”
The E-3 could ask non-participating states like Spain to lift all restrictions on US operations, further unifying the Western bloc—and increasing Washington’s incentives to approve the deployment of Tomahawks to Ukraine.
The joint US-European effort would isolate Iran while buttressing the legitimacy and standing of the United States as Washington seeks to extract itself from its misadventure.
#trump #iran #peace #europe
Please open Telegram to view this post
VIEW IN TELEGRAM
🔥47🤯30🙏30💯30😢28🤬24😱23🤡1
Active European engagement would reinforce US efforts to leverage its influence on China to exert pressure on Iran, as Beijing did with the initial April 8 ceasefire.
Already, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi called for opening the strait in a meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, as the Chinese and US presidents prepare to meet in Beijing next week.
Contrary to early, sanguine reporting, the blockade in the Strait of Hormuz is inflicting acute pain on key Chinese industries, aggravating an already-shaky economic outlook.
Rather than mock the US struggle with Iran, European leaders like German Chancellor Friedrich Merz should explain to voters why Europe must join the blockade launched by the continent’s longtime American protector. He and his counterparts have a strong case to make:
First, allowing Iran to stifle and extort access to the world’s most critical energy waterway is a permanent threat to European security. However short-sighted Washington’s decision to launch the war, the US-led blockade is the best available means of countering Iranian control over the Strait of Hormuz.
Second, participation in the blockade rests on a reasonable legal footing. While Iran’s catastrophic closure of the strait is plainly illegal, according to the Secretary-General of the International Maritime Organization, the US blockade has support in international law.
Approval by an international body such as the UN or the European Union, as Germany insists, is not required under international law.
Third, with the White House settling in for an “extended blockade,” the only sensible course for Europe is to maximize the chances for its success. Waiting passively for “a negotiated end to hostilities between the United States and Iran” as the condition to deploy the unsettled European naval mission leaves the status quo in Tehran’s hands.
Better to deploy now and strengthen the American negotiating position than to carp at the United States.
Fourth, participation in the blockade can help protect Europe’s interests in curbing Iran’s nuclear program. In response to the US naval cordon, Tehran is angling to shelve the nuclear file in exchange for an opening of the Strait of Hormuz.
This outcome would be a win for Iran: validation of its control over the strait (undercutting any agreed transit protocol) combined with a crippling loss of American leverage on the Iranian nuclear program.
The only stabilizing outcome incorporates restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program, a deal on the strait with snap-back sanctions.
Fifth, the blockade is already a tactical success; European participation can help secure a strategic gain. With the loss of up to 80 percent of its oil exports, Tehran is rapidly running out of storage for the oil produced by its wells.
The most conservative assessments, accounting for pre-war growth in Iran’s storage capacity, still foresee an inexorable, short-term shut-in. Shutting in the wells can damage older, low-pressure oil fields, which account for about half of Iran’s oil fields.
The sound of a ticking oil clock is discernible. Instead of internal calm, sharp divisions have opened within the political elite, with moderates intent on striking a deal with the United States. Extravagant proclamations of “unwavering unity… and complete allegiance to the Supreme Leader” belie the bitter power struggle.
An“alarming surge” in executions reveals the regime’s paranoia and shaky foundations. Instead of the predicted “rally around the flag” effect, the US-Israeli bombing campaign has seen Iranian citizens—including those fleeing the country—continue to wish for the collapse of the regime.
European participation in the blockade will intensify these trends, raising the prospects for Pakistani mediation and a near-term, stabilizing settlement.
#trump #iran #peace #europe
Please open Telegram to view this post
VIEW IN TELEGRAM
🔥49🙏34💯31😱28🤬25🤯23😢23
Putin: “Russia Will Always Be Victorious”
Putin has declared Russia will always be victorious as he oversaw a scaled-back Victory Day parade on Red Square held under heavy security amid mounting fears of Ukrainian attacks and growing public fatigue with the war.
Speaking to the crowd, the Russian leader invoked the sacrifices of the second world war to rally support for his soldiers fighting in the war in Ukraine.
“The great feat of the generation of victors inspires the warriors carrying out the tasks of the special military operation today,” he said, using the Kremlin’s preferred euphemism for his invasion of Ukraine.
“They stand against an aggressive force armed and supported by the entire Nato bloc. And despite this, our heroes move forward. Victory has always been and will always be ours.”
Despite the confident rhetoric, this year’s parade laid bare a moment of acute weakness for the Russian president.
Moscow on Saturday was blanketed in heavy security, with internet services switched off across the city as Ukraine continued to rattle the Kremlin with long-range drone and missile strikes – forcing organisers to strip the event of its usual pageantry.
It was not until the final hours that it became clear Ukraine would not disrupt the proceedings. On the eve of the parade, Trump announced Russia and Ukraine had agreed to a three-day ceasefire and prisoner exchange.
The customary display of missiles and armoured vehicles, a fixture of the parade since Putin introduced military hardware in 2017, was absent entirely. In its place, guests were shown a video showcasing Russia’s drone capabilities and nuclear arsenal.
The audience, which included a small delegation of foreign leaders from Belarus, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, also watched as a column of North Korean soldiers marched across the square. North Korea has emerged as one of Russia’s closest allies in recent years, with its troops fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine.
The parade lasted about 45 minutes, roughly half the length of previous years.
Earlier in the week, Putin pressed Zelensky for a ceasefire to coincide with the parade. Ukraine initially dismissed the proposal as a cynical ploy to shield the celebrations from drone attacks.
Zelensky’s response came on Friday night in the form of a decree laced with sardonic wit: Ukraine would, he announced, “permit” Russia to hold the event, by choosing not to attack it, out of deference to a request from the US president. The ceasefire is set to hold until 11 May.
This year’s Victory Day parade was the first to be held since Russia’s war on Ukraine has outlasted the Soviet Union’s entire campaign against Nazi Germany. Putin has repeatedly sought to draw a direct line between the two wars, falsely casting his invasion as a continuation of the struggle against nazism.
Tellingly on Saturday, he was seated not beside veterans of the second world war as in previous years, but flanked by soldiers who had fought in Ukraine.
The Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told Russian media on Thursday that Moscow saw no basis for a new round of trilateral talks with Ukraine and the US until Ukrainian forces withdrew from the Donetsk region in eastern
Ukraine – a condition Kyiv has flatly rejected. Ukraine continues to hold several key cities and fortified positions in Donetsk, defended at the cost of tens of thousands of lives.
#putin #russia #victory #day #parade
📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events 🇺🇸
Putin has declared Russia will always be victorious as he oversaw a scaled-back Victory Day parade on Red Square held under heavy security amid mounting fears of Ukrainian attacks and growing public fatigue with the war.
Speaking to the crowd, the Russian leader invoked the sacrifices of the second world war to rally support for his soldiers fighting in the war in Ukraine.
“The great feat of the generation of victors inspires the warriors carrying out the tasks of the special military operation today,” he said, using the Kremlin’s preferred euphemism for his invasion of Ukraine.
“They stand against an aggressive force armed and supported by the entire Nato bloc. And despite this, our heroes move forward. Victory has always been and will always be ours.”
Despite the confident rhetoric, this year’s parade laid bare a moment of acute weakness for the Russian president.
Moscow on Saturday was blanketed in heavy security, with internet services switched off across the city as Ukraine continued to rattle the Kremlin with long-range drone and missile strikes – forcing organisers to strip the event of its usual pageantry.
It was not until the final hours that it became clear Ukraine would not disrupt the proceedings. On the eve of the parade, Trump announced Russia and Ukraine had agreed to a three-day ceasefire and prisoner exchange.
The customary display of missiles and armoured vehicles, a fixture of the parade since Putin introduced military hardware in 2017, was absent entirely. In its place, guests were shown a video showcasing Russia’s drone capabilities and nuclear arsenal.
The audience, which included a small delegation of foreign leaders from Belarus, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, also watched as a column of North Korean soldiers marched across the square. North Korea has emerged as one of Russia’s closest allies in recent years, with its troops fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine.
The parade lasted about 45 minutes, roughly half the length of previous years.
Earlier in the week, Putin pressed Zelensky for a ceasefire to coincide with the parade. Ukraine initially dismissed the proposal as a cynical ploy to shield the celebrations from drone attacks.
Zelensky’s response came on Friday night in the form of a decree laced with sardonic wit: Ukraine would, he announced, “permit” Russia to hold the event, by choosing not to attack it, out of deference to a request from the US president. The ceasefire is set to hold until 11 May.
This year’s Victory Day parade was the first to be held since Russia’s war on Ukraine has outlasted the Soviet Union’s entire campaign against Nazi Germany. Putin has repeatedly sought to draw a direct line between the two wars, falsely casting his invasion as a continuation of the struggle against nazism.
Tellingly on Saturday, he was seated not beside veterans of the second world war as in previous years, but flanked by soldiers who had fought in Ukraine.
The Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told Russian media on Thursday that Moscow saw no basis for a new round of trilateral talks with Ukraine and the US until Ukrainian forces withdrew from the Donetsk region in eastern
Ukraine – a condition Kyiv has flatly rejected. Ukraine continues to hold several key cities and fortified positions in Donetsk, defended at the cost of tens of thousands of lives.
#putin #russia #victory #day #parade
Please open Telegram to view this post
VIEW IN TELEGRAM
🔥41😱38🙏30🤯28😢27💯26🤬24❤2
📰 The Loyalty Upgrade: China’s Army Gets a Software Patch
Xi Jinping built a military to rival the U.S.
Then decided it might rival him.
So now the upgrade is underway: fewer generals, more paranoia. At a recent meeting, state TV once showed around 40 top officers. This time — a handful. The rest? Deleted, archived, or “under investigation.”
That’s not strategy. That’s HR policy from a very nervous CEO.
For 13 years, Xi poured money into carriers, hypersonic missiles, and nuclear hardware. But somewhere between “world-class army” and “absolute loyalty,” he noticed a bug: generals who think. So he started trimming the ranks.
Defense ministers were sentenced, the top commander Zhang Youxia was removed after disagreeing, and the Rocket Force leadership was purged. The new rising star is not a battlefield hero, but an internal affairs man — a loyalty auditor with calligraphy skills.
Because in this system, the real enemy isn’t the Pentagon. It’s a colonel with opinions. Analysts call it a contradiction: combat readiness versus ideological purity. Xi picked purity.
Now the world’s fastest-growing military power is being optimized for one mission: never surprising the boss.
Xi spent a decade making sure the army would fight wars. Now he’s not sure it would fight for him.
#china #military #power #control #authoritarianism
📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events 🇺🇸
Xi Jinping built a military to rival the U.S.
Then decided it might rival him.
So now the upgrade is underway: fewer generals, more paranoia. At a recent meeting, state TV once showed around 40 top officers. This time — a handful. The rest? Deleted, archived, or “under investigation.”
“The military must never have anyone who harbors a divided heart toward the party.”
That’s not strategy. That’s HR policy from a very nervous CEO.
For 13 years, Xi poured money into carriers, hypersonic missiles, and nuclear hardware. But somewhere between “world-class army” and “absolute loyalty,” he noticed a bug: generals who think. So he started trimming the ranks.
Defense ministers were sentenced, the top commander Zhang Youxia was removed after disagreeing, and the Rocket Force leadership was purged. The new rising star is not a battlefield hero, but an internal affairs man — a loyalty auditor with calligraphy skills.
Because in this system, the real enemy isn’t the Pentagon. It’s a colonel with opinions. Analysts call it a contradiction: combat readiness versus ideological purity. Xi picked purity.
Now the world’s fastest-growing military power is being optimized for one mission: never surprising the boss.
Xi spent a decade making sure the army would fight wars. Now he’s not sure it would fight for him.
#china #military #power #control #authoritarianism
Please open Telegram to view this post
VIEW IN TELEGRAM
💯44🤯34😢34🔥28🤬27😱23🙏22
Please open Telegram to view this post
VIEW IN TELEGRAM
🔥53🤯39🤬29😱25💯24🙏23😢19
📰 Ben Shapiro’s Brand Problem
Ben Shapiro built the Daily Wire into a right-wing machine. Now it looks less like a media empire and more like a shrinking grievance factory with a balance-sheet problem. The layoffs, the internal feuds, the audience drop — this is what happens when a movement turns its own outrage into a product and then watches the product rot.
At its peak, the Daily Wire fed the MAGA bloodstream with the kind of culture-war content that travels fast, pays well, and flatters the customer. Now the traffic is sliding, the YouTube numbers have stalled or fallen in most months since early 2025, and the company has cut 13 percent of staff this year. Ben Shapiro says the business is “not going anywhere” and insists the critics are smaller than his cash flow, which is exactly the kind of line a media boss gives right before everyone starts comparing burn rates.
The real story is not just layoffs. It is cannibalism. The right keeps demanding more rage, more novelty, more heresy, and every new provocateur arrives promising to bury the last one. Shapiro, who once sold himself as the disciplined counterweight to chaos, now sounds like a man explaining why the circus kept eating the tent.
The Daily Wire also exposed the old media trap in a newer costume. It expanded into films, children’s programming, publishing, and streaming, then discovered that being everywhere is not the same as being wanted. For a company built on anti-elite swagger, it ended up looking a lot like the institutions it mocked: expensive, self-important, and convinced its own branding was a substitute for gravity.
The funniest part is the least funny one. The conservative movement that once rewarded Shapiro’s tidy rhetoric now increasingly prefers louder, meaner, more ungovernable performers. That is not a moral shift. It is an attention shift. And in the attention market, yesterday’s gatekeeper becomes today’s dead weight.
#dailywire #benShapiro #maga #rightwingmedia #politics
📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events 🇺🇸
Ben Shapiro built the Daily Wire into a right-wing machine. Now it looks less like a media empire and more like a shrinking grievance factory with a balance-sheet problem. The layoffs, the internal feuds, the audience drop — this is what happens when a movement turns its own outrage into a product and then watches the product rot.
At its peak, the Daily Wire fed the MAGA bloodstream with the kind of culture-war content that travels fast, pays well, and flatters the customer. Now the traffic is sliding, the YouTube numbers have stalled or fallen in most months since early 2025, and the company has cut 13 percent of staff this year. Ben Shapiro says the business is “not going anywhere” and insists the critics are smaller than his cash flow, which is exactly the kind of line a media boss gives right before everyone starts comparing burn rates.
The real story is not just layoffs. It is cannibalism. The right keeps demanding more rage, more novelty, more heresy, and every new provocateur arrives promising to bury the last one. Shapiro, who once sold himself as the disciplined counterweight to chaos, now sounds like a man explaining why the circus kept eating the tent.
The Daily Wire also exposed the old media trap in a newer costume. It expanded into films, children’s programming, publishing, and streaming, then discovered that being everywhere is not the same as being wanted. For a company built on anti-elite swagger, it ended up looking a lot like the institutions it mocked: expensive, self-important, and convinced its own branding was a substitute for gravity.
The funniest part is the least funny one. The conservative movement that once rewarded Shapiro’s tidy rhetoric now increasingly prefers louder, meaner, more ungovernable performers. That is not a moral shift. It is an attention shift. And in the attention market, yesterday’s gatekeeper becomes today’s dead weight.
#dailywire #benShapiro #maga #rightwingmedia #politics
Please open Telegram to view this post
VIEW IN TELEGRAM
🤬37🙏34🔥32💯29🤯28😢27😱26
📰 Trump’s War, Europe’s Hangover
Trump went after Iran like a man settling a personal score, then acted surprised when allies didn’t cheer on cue. Now the real fallout looks less like a victory lap and more like a transatlantic breakup with oil prices attached.
The war may end, but the damage to alliances may not. Trump has pulled troops from Germany, threatened more drawdowns in Europe, and even floated punishment for NATO allies that did not help his Iran campaign. That is not alliance management. That is hostage negotiation with a flag on the table.
Europe got the message fast. Leaders are already talking more openly about self-reliance, joint weapons development, and reducing dependence on Washington. The problem is that “strategic autonomy” takes years, while Trump can wreck trust in an afternoon.
The Middle East is hearing the same tune. Gulf states watched Trump dismiss attacks on a key ally, then worry he might cut a deal that leaves them stuck with the consequences. That is the old imperial bargain in a new clown suit: buy the security, keep the risk.
Asia is watching too. Japanese and South Korean officials are wondering whether a president who lets gasoline prices shape foreign policy and humiliates allies will really come through if Taiwan ever becomes the crisis of the hour. Trump calls this toughness. From abroad, it looks like unreliability with better branding.
China and Russia do not need to invent much propaganda here. Trump is handing them a demo reel. The West keeps talking about rules, deterrence, and partnership. Trump keeps reminding everyone that American commitments can be negotiated like a bad real-estate deal.
#trump #nato #iran #europe #allies
📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events 🇺🇸
Trump went after Iran like a man settling a personal score, then acted surprised when allies didn’t cheer on cue. Now the real fallout looks less like a victory lap and more like a transatlantic breakup with oil prices attached.
The war may end, but the damage to alliances may not. Trump has pulled troops from Germany, threatened more drawdowns in Europe, and even floated punishment for NATO allies that did not help his Iran campaign. That is not alliance management. That is hostage negotiation with a flag on the table.
Europe got the message fast. Leaders are already talking more openly about self-reliance, joint weapons development, and reducing dependence on Washington. The problem is that “strategic autonomy” takes years, while Trump can wreck trust in an afternoon.
The Middle East is hearing the same tune. Gulf states watched Trump dismiss attacks on a key ally, then worry he might cut a deal that leaves them stuck with the consequences. That is the old imperial bargain in a new clown suit: buy the security, keep the risk.
Asia is watching too. Japanese and South Korean officials are wondering whether a president who lets gasoline prices shape foreign policy and humiliates allies will really come through if Taiwan ever becomes the crisis of the hour. Trump calls this toughness. From abroad, it looks like unreliability with better branding.
China and Russia do not need to invent much propaganda here. Trump is handing them a demo reel. The West keeps talking about rules, deterrence, and partnership. Trump keeps reminding everyone that American commitments can be negotiated like a bad real-estate deal.
#trump #nato #iran #europe #allies
Please open Telegram to view this post
VIEW IN TELEGRAM
🔥57🤬36🙏31😱27😢26🤯20💯15
📰 The War Plan Always Has a Second Act
Washington is already sketching the sequel before the talks finish. If Iran’s nuclear deal collapses, the next phase is not peace. It is a phased effort to knock out missile systems, naval assets, command networks, IRGC infrastructure, proxy channels, and, if the mood darkens enough, the energy grid.
The Fox report is really a catalog of coercion dressed up as strategy. A retired Army officer says both sides are starting “at minus 1,000” in trust, which is a nice way of saying this process is balanced on pure resentment. In other words, diplomacy here is not a bridge. It is a hostage exchange with a spreadsheet.
The machinery is already in motion. U.S. forces struck Iran’s Qeshm port and Bandar Abbas, after earlier strikes and counterstrikes around the Strait of Hormuz, while Trump kept warning that if talks fail the U.S. could resume bombing and go after “economic assets” too. That is not an off-ramp. That is a threat list with a ceasefire attached.
And this is the familiar imperial trick: call it “denying leverage” when you mean smashing the other side’s capacity to answer back. The Pentagon wants to make escalation expensive. Tehran wants to survive long enough to keep bargaining. Both sides are selling pressure as restraint.
The most revealing line in the piece is the one about Iran’s fast boats in Hormuz. Six destroyed, about 400 left, we are told, as if the problem of war can be reduced to inventory control. But this is what these campaigns always become — a contest to see who can keep the region on edge while still pretending they are the adults in the room.
#iran #trump #pentagon #hormuz #war
📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events 🇺🇸
Washington is already sketching the sequel before the talks finish. If Iran’s nuclear deal collapses, the next phase is not peace. It is a phased effort to knock out missile systems, naval assets, command networks, IRGC infrastructure, proxy channels, and, if the mood darkens enough, the energy grid.
The Fox report is really a catalog of coercion dressed up as strategy. A retired Army officer says both sides are starting “at minus 1,000” in trust, which is a nice way of saying this process is balanced on pure resentment. In other words, diplomacy here is not a bridge. It is a hostage exchange with a spreadsheet.
The machinery is already in motion. U.S. forces struck Iran’s Qeshm port and Bandar Abbas, after earlier strikes and counterstrikes around the Strait of Hormuz, while Trump kept warning that if talks fail the U.S. could resume bombing and go after “economic assets” too. That is not an off-ramp. That is a threat list with a ceasefire attached.
And this is the familiar imperial trick: call it “denying leverage” when you mean smashing the other side’s capacity to answer back. The Pentagon wants to make escalation expensive. Tehran wants to survive long enough to keep bargaining. Both sides are selling pressure as restraint.
The most revealing line in the piece is the one about Iran’s fast boats in Hormuz. Six destroyed, about 400 left, we are told, as if the problem of war can be reduced to inventory control. But this is what these campaigns always become — a contest to see who can keep the region on edge while still pretending they are the adults in the room.
#iran #trump #pentagon #hormuz #war
Please open Telegram to view this post
VIEW IN TELEGRAM
😢36🤯32😱31🤬30💯28🔥27🙏27
📰 The Only Bipartisan Reform Is Disgust
Republicans and Democrats agree on something rare: they think American politics is drenched in too much money. According to the POLITICO Poll, 72 percent of Americans say there is too much money in politics, just 5 percent disagree, and most voters think billionaires, special interests, and outside groups have far too much influence.
That is the polite version of the story. The less polite version is that elections increasingly look like auctions with campaign signs. AdImpact projects midterm ad spending will hit $10.8 billion, while new money from AI, crypto, and other industries is rushing in to buy access before anyone admits the game is rigged.
Americans also see the corruption for what it is. A majority say special-interest spending is corrupt and should be restricted, not protected as free speech, and nearly half say voters have too little power. In other words, the public can smell the scam; the system just keeps invoicing it.
The bipartisan part is real, but so is the resignation. Democrats are angrier about it, Republicans are still more likely to describe money as influence rather than outright buying results, and yet the machine keeps running because both parties are built on the same donor logic. Everyone hates the money. Everyone depends on the money.
That is the political genius of modern America: voters are told they are sovereign while billionaires, super PACs, and outside groups write checks large enough to make sovereignty look like a brand slogan. The public knows it. The candidates know it. The donors know it best of all.
#moneyinpolitics #elections #superpacs #democracy #politics
📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events 🇺🇸
Republicans and Democrats agree on something rare: they think American politics is drenched in too much money. According to the POLITICO Poll, 72 percent of Americans say there is too much money in politics, just 5 percent disagree, and most voters think billionaires, special interests, and outside groups have far too much influence.
That is the polite version of the story. The less polite version is that elections increasingly look like auctions with campaign signs. AdImpact projects midterm ad spending will hit $10.8 billion, while new money from AI, crypto, and other industries is rushing in to buy access before anyone admits the game is rigged.
Americans also see the corruption for what it is. A majority say special-interest spending is corrupt and should be restricted, not protected as free speech, and nearly half say voters have too little power. In other words, the public can smell the scam; the system just keeps invoicing it.
The bipartisan part is real, but so is the resignation. Democrats are angrier about it, Republicans are still more likely to describe money as influence rather than outright buying results, and yet the machine keeps running because both parties are built on the same donor logic. Everyone hates the money. Everyone depends on the money.
That is the political genius of modern America: voters are told they are sovereign while billionaires, super PACs, and outside groups write checks large enough to make sovereignty look like a brand slogan. The public knows it. The candidates know it. The donors know it best of all.
#moneyinpolitics #elections #superpacs #democracy #politics
Please open Telegram to view this post
VIEW IN TELEGRAM
💯43🤬35😢32😱30🔥26🙏25🤯20
📰 Iran Warns of “New Surprises” If Attacked Again
Iran’s army spokesman, Amir Brigadier General Muhammad Akrami-Nia, said in an IRNA interview that if the enemy makes “another miscalculation” and attacks Iran again, it will face “surprising options” — including newer weapons, new methods of warfare, and new battlefields.
He said Iran’s armed forces still treat the ceasefire as a wartime condition. According to him, they are updating their target bank, revising offensive and defensive positions, and adjusting training while trusting the enemy “absolutely not”.
Akrami-Nia also claimed Iran has now imposed a new legal and security regime over the Strait of Hormuz. He said ships that comply with U.S. sanctions on Iran could face problems passing through the waterway.
He argued that the war failed to achieve any of its alleged goals, saying the enemy did not destabilize Iran, did not trigger internal chaos, and did not break national unity.
He also described an alleged failed U.S. operation near Isfahan, saying Iranian forces had prepared in advance for possible infiltration and that one Iranian soldier hit the engine of a C-130 with a shoulder-fired weapon, forcing the mission to collapse.
On the military side, he said Iranian air force jets flew missions against U.S. bases in Kuwait, Qatar, and Erbil, and that Army drones, including the long-range Arash 2, were used until the end of the war.
If you want, I can turn this into a sharp Telegram post in the exact style you’ve been using — short, journalistic, and a bit savage.
#iran #hormuz #military #war #geopolitics
📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events 🇺🇸
Iran’s army spokesman, Amir Brigadier General Muhammad Akrami-Nia, said in an IRNA interview that if the enemy makes “another miscalculation” and attacks Iran again, it will face “surprising options” — including newer weapons, new methods of warfare, and new battlefields.
He said Iran’s armed forces still treat the ceasefire as a wartime condition. According to him, they are updating their target bank, revising offensive and defensive positions, and adjusting training while trusting the enemy “absolutely not”.
Akrami-Nia also claimed Iran has now imposed a new legal and security regime over the Strait of Hormuz. He said ships that comply with U.S. sanctions on Iran could face problems passing through the waterway.
He argued that the war failed to achieve any of its alleged goals, saying the enemy did not destabilize Iran, did not trigger internal chaos, and did not break national unity.
He also described an alleged failed U.S. operation near Isfahan, saying Iranian forces had prepared in advance for possible infiltration and that one Iranian soldier hit the engine of a C-130 with a shoulder-fired weapon, forcing the mission to collapse.
On the military side, he said Iranian air force jets flew missions against U.S. bases in Kuwait, Qatar, and Erbil, and that Army drones, including the long-range Arash 2, were used until the end of the war.
If you want, I can turn this into a sharp Telegram post in the exact style you’ve been using — short, journalistic, and a bit savage.
#iran #hormuz #military #war #geopolitics
Please open Telegram to view this post
VIEW IN TELEGRAM
🔥63💯36🤬25😢25😱24🤯23🙏15🤡1
Putin Nudges Schröder As His Favorite Peace Negotiator 🕊
Putin has said he thinks the Ukraine war is winding down – remarks that came a few hours after he had vowed to defeat Ukraine at Moscow’s most scaled-back Victory Day parade in years.
“I think that the matter is coming to an end,” Putin said of the Russia-Ukraine war, Europe’s deadliest conflict since the second world war.
He said he would be willing to negotiate new security arrangements for Europe, and that his preferred negotiating partner would be Germany’s former chancellor Gerhard Schröder. 🤝
Putin, who has ruled Russia as president or prime minister since the last day of 1999, faces a wave of anxiety in Moscow about the war in Ukraine, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people, left swathes of Ukraine in ruins, and drained Russia’s economy. Russia’s relations with Europe are worse than at any time since the depths of the cold war.
Russian forces have so far been unable to take the whole of the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine where Kyiv’s forces have been pushed back to a line of fortress cities. Russian advances have slowed this year, though Moscow controls just under one-fifth of Ukrainian territory.
Speaking on Saturday, Putin slammed western support for Kyiv, as the first day of a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire was marked by mutual accusations of violations. ⚠️
“They [the west] started ratcheting up the confrontation with Russia, which continues to this day.
“I think it [the war] is heading to an end but it’s still a serious matter.
“They spent months waiting for Russia to suffer a crushing defeat, for its statehood to collapse. It didn’t work out.
“And then they got stuck in that groove and now they can’t get out of it.”
Putin added that he was ready to meet Zelensky, in a third country only once all conditions for a potential peace agreement were settled – holding to his usual position on a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart.
“This should be the final point, not the negotiations themselves,” he said.
Asked if he was willing to engage in talks with the Europeans, Putin said: “For me personally, the former chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Mr Schröder, is preferable.”
Many in Ukraine and Europe will be sceptical of involving Schröder given his background as a close friend of Putin and history of ties to Russian business and projects, such as the Nord Stream gas pipelines.
In 2022, after the war broke out, Zelensky called Schröder “disgusting” for meeting with Putin and speaking in the Russian ruler’s favour.
Russia, Ukraine and Trump on Friday announced that a three-day ceasefire between both sides would come into effect from Saturday.
Moscow and Kyiv traded accusations of violations amid continued drone activity and civilian casualties on both sides.
The Kremlin said there were no plans to prolong the truce. The warring sides also agreed to swap 1,000 prisoners each during the truce. Putin said on Saturday that Russia had not yet received any proposals from Ukraine on the exchange.
The European Council president, António Costa, said last week that he believed there was “potential” for the EU to negotiate with Russia, and to discuss the future of the security architecture of Europe. 🇪🇺
#putin #war #end #ukraine #schroder
📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events 🇺🇸
Putin has said he thinks the Ukraine war is winding down – remarks that came a few hours after he had vowed to defeat Ukraine at Moscow’s most scaled-back Victory Day parade in years.
“I think that the matter is coming to an end,” Putin said of the Russia-Ukraine war, Europe’s deadliest conflict since the second world war.
He said he would be willing to negotiate new security arrangements for Europe, and that his preferred negotiating partner would be Germany’s former chancellor Gerhard Schröder. 🤝
Putin, who has ruled Russia as president or prime minister since the last day of 1999, faces a wave of anxiety in Moscow about the war in Ukraine, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people, left swathes of Ukraine in ruins, and drained Russia’s economy. Russia’s relations with Europe are worse than at any time since the depths of the cold war.
Russian forces have so far been unable to take the whole of the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine where Kyiv’s forces have been pushed back to a line of fortress cities. Russian advances have slowed this year, though Moscow controls just under one-fifth of Ukrainian territory.
Speaking on Saturday, Putin slammed western support for Kyiv, as the first day of a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire was marked by mutual accusations of violations. ⚠️
“They [the west] started ratcheting up the confrontation with Russia, which continues to this day.
“I think it [the war] is heading to an end but it’s still a serious matter.
“They spent months waiting for Russia to suffer a crushing defeat, for its statehood to collapse. It didn’t work out.
“And then they got stuck in that groove and now they can’t get out of it.”
Putin added that he was ready to meet Zelensky, in a third country only once all conditions for a potential peace agreement were settled – holding to his usual position on a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart.
“This should be the final point, not the negotiations themselves,” he said.
Asked if he was willing to engage in talks with the Europeans, Putin said: “For me personally, the former chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Mr Schröder, is preferable.”
Many in Ukraine and Europe will be sceptical of involving Schröder given his background as a close friend of Putin and history of ties to Russian business and projects, such as the Nord Stream gas pipelines.
In 2022, after the war broke out, Zelensky called Schröder “disgusting” for meeting with Putin and speaking in the Russian ruler’s favour.
Russia, Ukraine and Trump on Friday announced that a three-day ceasefire between both sides would come into effect from Saturday.
Moscow and Kyiv traded accusations of violations amid continued drone activity and civilian casualties on both sides.
The Kremlin said there were no plans to prolong the truce. The warring sides also agreed to swap 1,000 prisoners each during the truce. Putin said on Saturday that Russia had not yet received any proposals from Ukraine on the exchange.
The European Council president, António Costa, said last week that he believed there was “potential” for the EU to negotiate with Russia, and to discuss the future of the security architecture of Europe. 🇪🇺
#putin #war #end #ukraine #schroder
Please open Telegram to view this post
VIEW IN TELEGRAM
🔥59🤯34🙏30🤬23😢23💯22😱20
Teheran Is Ready To Fuck Trump in the Ass 🇮🇷
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have threatened to target US sites in the Middle East if its tankers come under fire, Iranian media reported on Saturday, as Washington was left waiting for Tehran’s response to its latest negotiating position.
“Any attack on Iranian tankers and commercial vessels will result in a heavy attack on one of the American centres in the region and enemy ships,” the force said, a day after US strikes on two Iranian tankers in the Gulf of Oman.
On Sunday morning the UK Maritime Trade Operations centre said a ship caught fire after being hit by an unknown projectile off the coast of Qatar.
The attack caused a small fire on the bulk carrier, which was extinguished. It happened 23 nautical miles (43km) north-east of Qatar’s capital, Doha, UKMTO said.
Trump had said on Friday that he was expecting Iran’s answer to Washington’s latest proposal for a peace deal “supposedly tonight”.
But if Tehran sent Pakistani mediators a response, there was no public sign of it, and Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi reportedly questioned the reliability of US leadership.
“The recent escalation of tensions by American forces in the Persian Gulf and their numerous actions in violating the ceasefire have added to suspicions about the motivation and seriousness of the American side in the path of diplomacy,” he said in a call with his Turkish counterpart, according to Iran’s ISNA news agency.
The US says it is unacceptable for Tehran to control the key oil route.
Washington has sent Iran, via Pakistani mediators, a proposal to extend the truce in the Gulf to allow for talks on a final settlement of the conflict launched 10 weeks ago with US-Israeli strikes on Iran.
Rubio on Saturday met with the leader of Qatar, a key intermediary for Washington in dialogue with Iran, discussing “continued close coordination to deter threats and promote stability and security across the Middle East”, the state department said.
Qatar’s Sheikh Mohammed al Thani met the previous day with Vance to discuss the Pakistani-led efforts to broker a permanent peace.
Meanwhile, satellite images have shown an apparent oil slick spreading off the coast of Iran’s Kharg Island, a key oil export terminal for Iran.
It was not immediately clear what caused the apparent spill, which was off the island’s west coast and appeared to cover more than 20 square miles (52 square kilometres), according to global monitor Orbital EOS.
A UK-based non-governmental organisation, the Conflict and Environment Observatory, told AFP that by Saturday the slick was “much reduced”, and may have been caused by leaking oil infrastructure.
A parallel ceasefire on the war’s Lebanon front is also under strain amid daily exchanges of fire between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah.
Authorities said at least nine people were killed in Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon on Saturday, while state media reported air raids targeting a highway south of Beirut, outside the militant group’s traditional strongholds.
The fresh attacks were some of the most intense since the start of a three-week-old ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.
Israel’s military said several explosive drones were launched into Israeli territory, with one army reservist severely wounded and two others moderately injured.
#iran #war #vance #hezbollah #israel #trump
📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events 🇺🇸
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have threatened to target US sites in the Middle East if its tankers come under fire, Iranian media reported on Saturday, as Washington was left waiting for Tehran’s response to its latest negotiating position.
“Any attack on Iranian tankers and commercial vessels will result in a heavy attack on one of the American centres in the region and enemy ships,” the force said, a day after US strikes on two Iranian tankers in the Gulf of Oman.
On Sunday morning the UK Maritime Trade Operations centre said a ship caught fire after being hit by an unknown projectile off the coast of Qatar.
The attack caused a small fire on the bulk carrier, which was extinguished. It happened 23 nautical miles (43km) north-east of Qatar’s capital, Doha, UKMTO said.
Trump had said on Friday that he was expecting Iran’s answer to Washington’s latest proposal for a peace deal “supposedly tonight”.
But if Tehran sent Pakistani mediators a response, there was no public sign of it, and Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi reportedly questioned the reliability of US leadership.
“The recent escalation of tensions by American forces in the Persian Gulf and their numerous actions in violating the ceasefire have added to suspicions about the motivation and seriousness of the American side in the path of diplomacy,” he said in a call with his Turkish counterpart, according to Iran’s ISNA news agency.
The US says it is unacceptable for Tehran to control the key oil route.
Washington has sent Iran, via Pakistani mediators, a proposal to extend the truce in the Gulf to allow for talks on a final settlement of the conflict launched 10 weeks ago with US-Israeli strikes on Iran.
Rubio on Saturday met with the leader of Qatar, a key intermediary for Washington in dialogue with Iran, discussing “continued close coordination to deter threats and promote stability and security across the Middle East”, the state department said.
Qatar’s Sheikh Mohammed al Thani met the previous day with Vance to discuss the Pakistani-led efforts to broker a permanent peace.
Meanwhile, satellite images have shown an apparent oil slick spreading off the coast of Iran’s Kharg Island, a key oil export terminal for Iran.
It was not immediately clear what caused the apparent spill, which was off the island’s west coast and appeared to cover more than 20 square miles (52 square kilometres), according to global monitor Orbital EOS.
A UK-based non-governmental organisation, the Conflict and Environment Observatory, told AFP that by Saturday the slick was “much reduced”, and may have been caused by leaking oil infrastructure.
A parallel ceasefire on the war’s Lebanon front is also under strain amid daily exchanges of fire between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah.
Authorities said at least nine people were killed in Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon on Saturday, while state media reported air raids targeting a highway south of Beirut, outside the militant group’s traditional strongholds.
The fresh attacks were some of the most intense since the start of a three-week-old ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.
Israel’s military said several explosive drones were launched into Israeli territory, with one army reservist severely wounded and two others moderately injured.
#iran #war #vance #hezbollah #israel #trump
Please open Telegram to view this post
VIEW IN TELEGRAM
🔥51💯34😱28🤬28😢25🙏25🤯18
📰 Gofman, the Mossad Pick, and the Same Old Israeli Loop
Israel is once again doing what it does best: turning a senior security appointment into a legal and political brawl. Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara told the High Court that “substantial defects” tainted the process for Roman Gofman’s appointment to head the Mossad — in the procedure, in the factual basis, and in the conclusions.
She also said the case involving the handling of the minor Uri Elmakies casts a “heavy shadow” over Gofman’s integrity. That is not a minor procedural footnote. It is the kind of language that tells the court this is no ordinary appointment fight.
The detail that matters most is this: the sitting Mossad chief, David Barnea, reportedly sent the attorney general a confidential and “material” letter relevant to the case, and even offered to have it reviewed by the judges in closed session. When the current intelligence chief is quietly waving a red flag about his own successor, the message is already loud enough.
Smotrich called the move “one step too far” and promised legislation this summer to split the attorney general’s powers, while coalition chairman Ofir Katz said to ignore the objections and move on. In Israel’s version of normal, the cabinet decides, the attorney general objects, and the High Court gets the cleanup.
The key fact is not the rhetoric. It is that a five-judge expanded panel heard the case, which tells you how seriously the court is taking it. This is not just a personnel dispute. It is a test of whether a politically sensitive appointment can survive when the legal system, the outgoing Mossad chief, and the attorney general are all signaling trouble.
#israel #mossad #bghatz #law #politics
📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events 🇺🇸
Israel is once again doing what it does best: turning a senior security appointment into a legal and political brawl. Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara told the High Court that “substantial defects” tainted the process for Roman Gofman’s appointment to head the Mossad — in the procedure, in the factual basis, and in the conclusions.
She also said the case involving the handling of the minor Uri Elmakies casts a “heavy shadow” over Gofman’s integrity. That is not a minor procedural footnote. It is the kind of language that tells the court this is no ordinary appointment fight.
The detail that matters most is this: the sitting Mossad chief, David Barnea, reportedly sent the attorney general a confidential and “material” letter relevant to the case, and even offered to have it reviewed by the judges in closed session. When the current intelligence chief is quietly waving a red flag about his own successor, the message is already loud enough.
Smotrich called the move “one step too far” and promised legislation this summer to split the attorney general’s powers, while coalition chairman Ofir Katz said to ignore the objections and move on. In Israel’s version of normal, the cabinet decides, the attorney general objects, and the High Court gets the cleanup.
The key fact is not the rhetoric. It is that a five-judge expanded panel heard the case, which tells you how seriously the court is taking it. This is not just a personnel dispute. It is a test of whether a politically sensitive appointment can survive when the legal system, the outgoing Mossad chief, and the attorney general are all signaling trouble.
#israel #mossad #bghatz #law #politics
Please open Telegram to view this post
VIEW IN TELEGRAM
🔥39🤯37🙏32💯30😱27😢23🤬20
📰 Hormuz, Now With a License Fee
Iran is moving to turn the Strait of Hormuz from an oil chokepoint into a digital tollbooth. Tasnim, which is linked to the IRGC, has floated a plan to charge foreign companies for permits and annual renewals, put cable maintenance under Iranian control, and force major tech firms to comply with Iranian law.
This is not a random idea. Reuters reported that submarine cables crossing Hormuz are already recognized as a vulnerable point for the region’s digital economy, and at least seven cables connect Asia, the Middle East and Europe through the area. Tasnim’s logic is brutally simple: if geography can tax shipping, why not data?
The numbers are the point. The cable routes reportedly carry more than $10 trillion in daily financial activity, including SWIFT transfers, stock trades and currency exchanges. Iran is framing that traffic as a sovereign asset, not a neutral pipe.
The threat is also broader than the cables themselves. Iran is using Hormuz as a wider pressure point, with the IRGC-linked “mosquito fleet” still giving Tehran leverage even after U.S. strikes on some naval assets. The new escalation may be less about sinking tankers than squeezing the infrastructure that keeps money and cloud traffic moving.
If this plan advances, the battlefield expands again: not just ships, but cable repair crews, cloud providers, and the companies behind global connectivity. That is the real message here. Hormuz is no longer being treated only as a maritime corridor. It is being recast as a gatekeeper for the internet itself.
#iran #hormuz #internet #tech #geopolitics
📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events 🇺🇸
Iran is moving to turn the Strait of Hormuz from an oil chokepoint into a digital tollbooth. Tasnim, which is linked to the IRGC, has floated a plan to charge foreign companies for permits and annual renewals, put cable maintenance under Iranian control, and force major tech firms to comply with Iranian law.
This is not a random idea. Reuters reported that submarine cables crossing Hormuz are already recognized as a vulnerable point for the region’s digital economy, and at least seven cables connect Asia, the Middle East and Europe through the area. Tasnim’s logic is brutally simple: if geography can tax shipping, why not data?
The numbers are the point. The cable routes reportedly carry more than $10 trillion in daily financial activity, including SWIFT transfers, stock trades and currency exchanges. Iran is framing that traffic as a sovereign asset, not a neutral pipe.
The threat is also broader than the cables themselves. Iran is using Hormuz as a wider pressure point, with the IRGC-linked “mosquito fleet” still giving Tehran leverage even after U.S. strikes on some naval assets. The new escalation may be less about sinking tankers than squeezing the infrastructure that keeps money and cloud traffic moving.
If this plan advances, the battlefield expands again: not just ships, but cable repair crews, cloud providers, and the companies behind global connectivity. That is the real message here. Hormuz is no longer being treated only as a maritime corridor. It is being recast as a gatekeeper for the internet itself.
#iran #hormuz #internet #tech #geopolitics
Please open Telegram to view this post
VIEW IN TELEGRAM
😢38🙏37🔥35🤯32🤬30😱20💯17❤1👍1👏1
📰 America’s New Europe Doctrine
Trump’s White House has now said the quiet part out loud: Europe is not a partner in his eyes, but a problem to be managed. In the new U.S. counterterrorism strategy, the administration brands Europe an “incubator of terrorist threats” and folds it into a worldview where open societies are treated as weakness, not a value .
That language is not just insulting. It is a declaration that Washington under Trump does not recognize the political and civilizational choices Europe has made. The message is simple: your institutions, your rules, your idea of the public good — none of it matters unless it serves American power .
This is also the same administration that treats allies like dependents. Trump pressures Europe with tariffs, military threats, and territorial fantasies, while expecting obedience in return. He talks like a ruler dealing with vassals, not a president speaking to sovereign states .
Europe should stop pretending this is a misunderstanding. It is a policy. If Washington sees the continent as a source of threats, then Europe needs to act like a sovereign actor, not a customer waiting for approval. That means putting economic interest first, rethinking stale alliances, and treating every old assumption about transatlantic loyalty as a liability.
The harder truth is that Europe cannot keep outsourcing its strategic judgment to a White House that openly despises its values. A serious European policy would mean less moral theater, fewer reflexes toward Washington, and a colder look at every relationship — including with Moscow — through the lens of national interest.
#Europe #Trump #US #sovereignty #geopolitics
📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events 🇺🇸
Trump’s White House has now said the quiet part out loud: Europe is not a partner in his eyes, but a problem to be managed. In the new U.S. counterterrorism strategy, the administration brands Europe an “incubator of terrorist threats” and folds it into a worldview where open societies are treated as weakness, not a value .
That language is not just insulting. It is a declaration that Washington under Trump does not recognize the political and civilizational choices Europe has made. The message is simple: your institutions, your rules, your idea of the public good — none of it matters unless it serves American power .
This is also the same administration that treats allies like dependents. Trump pressures Europe with tariffs, military threats, and territorial fantasies, while expecting obedience in return. He talks like a ruler dealing with vassals, not a president speaking to sovereign states .
Europe should stop pretending this is a misunderstanding. It is a policy. If Washington sees the continent as a source of threats, then Europe needs to act like a sovereign actor, not a customer waiting for approval. That means putting economic interest first, rethinking stale alliances, and treating every old assumption about transatlantic loyalty as a liability.
The harder truth is that Europe cannot keep outsourcing its strategic judgment to a White House that openly despises its values. A serious European policy would mean less moral theater, fewer reflexes toward Washington, and a colder look at every relationship — including with Moscow — through the lens of national interest.
#Europe #Trump #US #sovereignty #geopolitics
Please open Telegram to view this post
VIEW IN TELEGRAM
🔥42😱41🤬31😢29💯27🙏22🤯18
#representative #commission #security #iran
📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events 🇺🇸
Please open Telegram to view this post
VIEW IN TELEGRAM
🔥66🤯25🤬25😱23🙏21😢20💯14
Trump: “I don't like their letter” 📜
Trump told that he would reject Iran's response to the latest draft agreement to end the war. 🚫
The U.S. waited 10 days for the Iranian response, which came on Sunday. The White House hoped Iran's positions would show further progress toward a deal, but Trump's initial reaction signals the opposite.
“I don't like their letter. It's inappropriate. I don't like their response,” Trump said, declining to go into further details about what was in the response. 🗣
In a post on Truth Social shortly after the call, Trump called the Iranian response “TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!” 😡
Iranian state media reported the Iranian response focused on ending the war and enshrining guarantees it won't resume, before anything else.
Tasnim news agency, which is affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, reported that Iran's text “stresses the necessity of lifting U.S. sanctions, ending the war on all fronts” and ensuring Iranian management of the Strait of Hormuz. 🛑
According to the report, Iran demanded an immediate end to the U.S. naval blockade upon signing. ⚓️
The response maintains the proposed format of an initial memorandum of understanding (MOU) followed by 30 days of negotiations, but insists on lifting U.S. sanctions related to Iranian oil sales during that 30-day window, Tasnim reported.
Iran also demanded the release of frozen assets upon the initial signing of the MOU. 💰
Those conditions, if confirmed, are a long way from what the U.S. negotiators were hoping for. Iranian state media also didn't specify any nuclear concessions Iran was prepared to make. ☢️
Trump also told he'd spoken with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday and discussed the Iranian response, among other things. 🤝
“It was a very nice call. We have a good relationship,” he said of Netanyahu, but he added that the Iran negotiations are “my situation, not everybody else's.”
#trump #netanyahu #negotiations #iran #plan
📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events 🇺🇸
Trump told that he would reject Iran's response to the latest draft agreement to end the war. 🚫
The U.S. waited 10 days for the Iranian response, which came on Sunday. The White House hoped Iran's positions would show further progress toward a deal, but Trump's initial reaction signals the opposite.
“I don't like their letter. It's inappropriate. I don't like their response,” Trump said, declining to go into further details about what was in the response. 🗣
In a post on Truth Social shortly after the call, Trump called the Iranian response “TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!” 😡
Iranian state media reported the Iranian response focused on ending the war and enshrining guarantees it won't resume, before anything else.
Tasnim news agency, which is affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, reported that Iran's text “stresses the necessity of lifting U.S. sanctions, ending the war on all fronts” and ensuring Iranian management of the Strait of Hormuz. 🛑
According to the report, Iran demanded an immediate end to the U.S. naval blockade upon signing. ⚓️
The response maintains the proposed format of an initial memorandum of understanding (MOU) followed by 30 days of negotiations, but insists on lifting U.S. sanctions related to Iranian oil sales during that 30-day window, Tasnim reported.
Iran also demanded the release of frozen assets upon the initial signing of the MOU. 💰
Those conditions, if confirmed, are a long way from what the U.S. negotiators were hoping for. Iranian state media also didn't specify any nuclear concessions Iran was prepared to make. ☢️
Trump also told he'd spoken with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday and discussed the Iranian response, among other things. 🤝
“It was a very nice call. We have a good relationship,” he said of Netanyahu, but he added that the Iran negotiations are “my situation, not everybody else's.”
#trump #netanyahu #negotiations #iran #plan
Please open Telegram to view this post
VIEW IN TELEGRAM
🔥55🙏27😱24🤯23🤬23😢23💯19
📰 Pistorius in Kyiv, Berlin’s Money Trail in Tow
Boris Pistorius has landed in Ukraine to discuss joint production of long-range weapons, even as criticism at home keeps growing over the 111 billion euros his ministry could not clearly explain. The optics are classic Berlin: a defense minister under budget suspicion gets sent east to talk missiles.
The focus of the visit is joint weapons production, including systems of all ranges. Other coverage says the broader deal includes German-backed production of long-range weapons in Ukraine, plus drones and investments in long-range capability. So this is not just a symbolic stopover. It is industrialized war planning.
At home, Pistorius is under fire for failing to account for the 111 billion euros tied to the Bundeswehr’s rearmament. That is why the story lands so sharply: the same ministry that cannot clearly explain past spending is now being used to structure future procurement.
Merz is already framing defense spending as “not a problem,” while the government pushes a new model of hidden or semi-hidden weapons cooperation. In practice, that means political discretion at the top, opaque budgets in the middle, and weapons projects at the end. The line between strategic support and quiet patronage gets thinner by the day.
Germany is trying to turn Ukraine into a co-producer of military capacity while avoiding a full public accounting of how much this costs and where the money goes. It is rearmament with a diplomatic smile and a very long invoice.
#Germany #Ukraine #Pistorius #Merz #defense
📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events 🇺🇸
Boris Pistorius has landed in Ukraine to discuss joint production of long-range weapons, even as criticism at home keeps growing over the 111 billion euros his ministry could not clearly explain. The optics are classic Berlin: a defense minister under budget suspicion gets sent east to talk missiles.
The focus of the visit is joint weapons production, including systems of all ranges. Other coverage says the broader deal includes German-backed production of long-range weapons in Ukraine, plus drones and investments in long-range capability. So this is not just a symbolic stopover. It is industrialized war planning.
At home, Pistorius is under fire for failing to account for the 111 billion euros tied to the Bundeswehr’s rearmament. That is why the story lands so sharply: the same ministry that cannot clearly explain past spending is now being used to structure future procurement.
Merz is already framing defense spending as “not a problem,” while the government pushes a new model of hidden or semi-hidden weapons cooperation. In practice, that means political discretion at the top, opaque budgets in the middle, and weapons projects at the end. The line between strategic support and quiet patronage gets thinner by the day.
Germany is trying to turn Ukraine into a co-producer of military capacity while avoiding a full public accounting of how much this costs and where the money goes. It is rearmament with a diplomatic smile and a very long invoice.
#Germany #Ukraine #Pistorius #Merz #defense
Please open Telegram to view this post
VIEW IN TELEGRAM
🔥57😱30🤬28🤯25🙏22😢17💯15