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Beneath the Surface: Is the Trump-Netanyahu ‘Unthinkable’ About to Erupt?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent visit to Washington was no ordinary trip. The consensus among Israeli analysts, barring a few remaining loyalists, is that Netanyahu was not invited but, rather, summoned by US President Donald Trump.

All evidence supports this assertion. Netanyahu rarely travels to the US without extensive Israeli media fanfare, leveraging his touted relationships with various US administrations as a “hasbara” opportunity to reinforce his image as Israel’s strongman.

This time, there was no room for such campaigns. Netanyahu was informed of Trump’s summons while on an official trip to Hungary. There, he was received by Hungarian President Viktor Orbán with exaggerated diplomatic accolades, signaling defiance against international condemnation of Netanyahu, an accused war criminal wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), and portraying him as anything but an isolated leader of an increasingly pariah state.

The capstone of Netanyahu’s short-lived Hungarian victory lap was Orbán’s announcement of Hungary’s withdrawal from the ICC, a move with profoundly unsettling implications.

It would have been convenient for Netanyahu to use his Washington visit to deflect from his failed war in Gaza and internal strife in Israel. However, as the Arabic saying goes, “the wind often blows contrary to the ship’s desires.”

The notion that Netanyahu was summoned, not invited, is corroborated by Israeli media reports that he attempted to postpone the visit under various pretexts. He failed, ultimately flying to Washington on the date determined by the White House. Initially, reports circulated that no press conference would be held, denying Netanyahu the platform to tout Washington’s unwavering support for his military actions and to expound on the “special relationship” between the two countries.

A press conference was held, though it was largely dominated by Trump’s contradictory messages and typical rhetoric. Netanyahu spoke briefly, attempting to project the same confident body language observed during his previous Washington visit, where he sat with an erect posture and spread out his legs, as if in command. But this time, his body language betrayed him; his eyes shifted nervously, and he appeared stiff and surprised, particularly when Trump announced that the US and Iran would begin direct talks in Oman soon.

Trump also mentioned the need to end the war in Gaza, but the Iran announcement clearly shocked Netanyahu. He desperately tried to align his discourse with Trump’s, referencing Libya’s disarmament under Muammar Gaddafi. But that was never part of Israel’s official regional plan. Israel had consistently advocated for US military intervention against Iran, despite the certainty that such a war would destabilize the entire region, potentially drawing the US into a conflict far more protracted and devastating than the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

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Real ID: Phony Security, Real Authoritarianism

Those who hoped the second Trump Administration would reject big spending, war, and restrictions on liberty continue to be disappointed. A new disappointment came when Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced her department would in May begin enforcing the REAL ID law.

Passed in 2005, the REAL ID Act created federal standards for driver’s licenses. The law requires everyone applying for a driver’s license to provide the DMV with his social security number, proof of legal residence, and two proofs of his home address. The REAL ID Act allows the Homeland Security Department to mandate, as it sees fit, the including of addition items in the related government database, including “biometric” identifiers. Biometric identifiers include personal data such as retina scans, fingerprints, and DNA.

People who doubt that this database will be used to violate the rights of US citizens should ask what a present-day J. Edgar Hoover — a former FBI director who was notorious for collecting private information on politicians and other prominent individuals — would do with a database containing personal and even biometric information on American citizens. They should also consider the IRS’s history of targeting presidents’ political opponents. Americans also have the threat of violations of their rights by hackers. The government has a poor track record of protecting data of US citizens.

REAL ID’s supporters deny the law turns state driver’s licenses into national ID cards because states have no mandate to implement REAL ID. However, citizens of any state that refuses to adopt REAL ID will be unable to use their state-issued IDs for boarding an airplane or riding on a train.

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US Trade Wars and Military Globalization Spark Complex Alignments

President Trump’s new round of reciprocal and universal tariffs will escalate trade tensions, lower investment, hit market pricing, distort trade flows, disrupt supply chains, and undermine consumer, business and investor confidence. It will certainly penalize global economic prospects.

As fears of a recession mount and mass protests in the US have begun, the loss of over $6 trillion on Wall Street in only two days is just a prelude of what’s to come. Along with China, the large trading economies in Europe, Japan and South Korea, India and Brazil and the rest of the world are positioned to counter the Trump tariffs.

Days before Trump’s new tariffs, China declared its trade minister had agreed with Japan and South Korea, Washington’s two treaty allies in Asia, on a common response to Trump’s actions. In Seoul and Tokyo, the statement was seen as overstated. Nonetheless, after the impeachment of former President Yoon Suk Yeol, the divided South Korea must cope with trade war amid a constitutional crisis, whereas Japan’s PM Shigeru Ishiba has declared it a “national crisis.” In South and Southeast Asia, Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa, developing economies coping with natural disasters and external destabilization efforts are targeted by Trump tariffs as well.

As Washington is decoupling the old linkages between trade and defense policies, it has opened the Pandora’s box for multi-dimensional alignments.

“National security” as pretext for global fragmentation

Taken at face value, the Trump reciprocal tariffs indicate that contemporary America’s greatest threats would be Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Lesotho and Cambodia; that is, a few tiny French islands close to Canada and two poor and small developing countries in Africa and Southeast Asia, respectively.

Ostensibly, the new international tariffs are legitimized by “national security.” In practice, they foster new volatility and uncertainty.

In the past, US military allies were trade partners and vice versa. Now military allies are trade adversaries. In the past, disagreements were resolved while tariffs were reduced; today the reverse applies.

The new protectionism is reminiscent of the Smoot-Hawley and reciprocal tariffs in the 1930s that went hand in hand with assertive nationalism, xenophobia and massive military rearmament paving the way to World War II, the Holocaust, and Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is thus odd that the military dimension has been largely ignored in recent globalization/deglobalization surveys.

In 1945, the United States accounted for almost half of the global economy. It was the world’s manufacturing giant and greatest debtor. US dollar monopolized cross-border transactions. Today, the relative share of the US in the world economy has halved. It’s the world’s de-industrial giant and greatest borrower. And the global dominance of the US dollar in world transactions has likely been halved, too.

Military power is an entirely different story, however. It is the muscle that the Biden administration used covertly and the Trump White House likes to tout overtly. It is this brute military primacy that is systematically exploited as the White House seeks to hammer the world into its image.

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Senator Demands 9/11 Investigation Into ‘Controlled Demolition’ of Building 7

One would have been hard-pressed to imagine, just a few years ago, a sitting United States senator suggesting that the Building 7 collapse may have been a “controlled demolition.” 

“What would you like to know about September 11, the official story there, Senator?” podcaster Benny Johnson prompted.

Sen. Ron Johnson’s (R-Wisc.) answer:

Well, start with Building 7. Again, I don’t know if you can find structural engineers other than the ones that have the corrupt investigations inside NIST that would say that that thing didn’t come down in any other way than a controlled demolition… You just look at that… 

There’s an awful lot of questions. Who ordered the removal and the destruction of all that evidence? Totally contrary to any other firefighting investigation procedures. I mean, who ordered that? Who is in charge? I think there’s some basic information. Where’s all the documentation from the NIST investigation.

Now, there are a host of questions that I want and I will be asking, quite honestly, now that my eyes have been opened up.

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Does Zelensky Want Peace or War?

Considerable attention has been paid to whether Russian President Vladimir Putin is serious about negotiating a peace or whether he is delaying to provide time to achieve all of Russia’s goals on the battlefield. The Kremlin, itself, has said that, though they take the Trump administration’s diplomatic efforts seriously, they cannot simply be accepted “as they are” because they have not yet addressed “Russia’s core demand, that is, the need to resolve the issues stemming from the root causes of this conflict.”

Russia has been accused by some of rejecting Trump’s ceasefire. The Kremlin has called the issue “complex” and cautioned against expectations of “immediate results.” Some of Russia’s “core demands,” like guarantees Ukraine won’t join NATO and protection for ethnic Russians in Ukraine, are reasonable; some, like maximal restrictions on the Ukrainian armed forces and Ukraine ceding more territory at the negotiating table than it has lost on the battlefield, are not.

Less attention has been paid to whether Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is serious about negotiating a peace. Though it is frequently claimed that, unlike Putin, Zelensky has accepted the Trump administration’s ceasefire without preconditions, like Russia, Ukraine has set preconditions. Zelensky has stipulated that children abducted by Russia and Ukrainian civilians illegally held by Russia must be returned. He has identified as red lines, reasonably, that no territory beyond that already occupied by Russia be ceded, and, more unreasonably, that adequate security guarantees be given. Unreasonable because those security guarantees, as Zelensky has previously made clear, must be NATO membership or international forces that include the United States. Recently, Ukraine added the red line that it could not accept limitations on its armed forces: “This is a principled position of Ukraine – no one, and certainly not the aggressor country Russia, will dictate to Ukraine what kind of armed forces Ukraine should have.”

But more immediately, and more provocatively, there has recently been a series of events that Ukraine has seized upon and potentially enhanced to provide a cause for increased Western aid and intervention. Standing between the Trump administration, who is trying to negotiate an end to the war, and Europe, who seems determined to continue the war, Zelensky has bought the rights to these true events and produced stories that may dramatically enhance the facts in order to provide the motivation to bring the U.S. back into the war.

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Elizabeth Warren Humiliates Herself Defending Biden’s Mental Acuity: ‘He Was on His Feet.’

During a recent appearance on the podcast “Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) found herself squirming under the weight of her own words as she tried — and failed — to defend past remarks about Joe Biden’s mental acuity. What unfolded was a meandering, painfully awkward exchange that exposed just how untenable the party line has become. Even the most loyal Democrats are struggling to maintain the illusion that Biden is still mentally sharp, and Warren’s stammering, half-hearted defense was nothing short of humiliating.

Fragoso began by zeroing in on Warren’s repeated defense of Biden’s mental fitness during his presidency. 

“Do you regret saying that President Biden had a mental acuity, he had a sharpness to him? You said that up until July of last year,” he asked.

Warren, visibly cautious, responded, “I said what I believed to be true.”

But Fragoso pressed further, not letting her get away with a vague non-answer: “And he, you think he was as sharp as you?”

That’s when the wheels started to come off. There was a long pause, followed by a silent, nervous chuckle from Warren. She finally replied, “Um, I said I had not seen decline.” After another pause, she added, “And I hadn’t at that point.”

Fragoso wasn’t buying it. He followed up: “You did not see any decline from 2024 Joe Biden to 2021 Joe Biden?”

Warren stuck to her guns — barely. “Not when I said that. You know, the, uh, the — the thing is he… Look, he was sharp, he was on his feet. I saw him [at] live event[s], I had meetings with him a couple of times.”

But “on his feet” clearly wasn’t the answer Fragoso was looking for or one that inspired confidence, and he called her out on it.

“Senator, ‘on his feet’ is not praise,” he said. “‘He can speak in sentences’ is not praise.”

Warren, sounding increasingly deflated, conceded: “All right. Fair enough. Fair enough.”

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There Is A Growing Plot Against Dogs

At the airport, the staff now offers comfort dogs, gorgeous Golden Retrievers and German Shepherds available for petting and holding. The idea is to comfort scared kids, delight passersby, and generally lift up the space. Yes, that’s exactly what dogs do.

What a wonderful idea. However, not everyone is happy about our love of dogs.

We’ve all become sensitive about threats on the horizon, small hints in science journals or from establishment media that target what we love. There was a time when we could treat these as an opportunity for debate and discussion. Events of the last five years suggest that parlor games are over. With so much trust lost, we are newly aware that these threats can turn out to be real and thus merit more attention.

The issue now concerns pets and dogs in particular. Are they coming for them?

In August 2020, Anthony Fauci co-authored an article in Cell that broadly called for “radical changes that may take decades to achieve: rebuilding the infrastructures of human existence.” Among the specifics, the article obliquely targets pet ownership, urging that we must reduce “unsafe exposure to animals.”

I wondered about that line at the time. The whole theory of the article is that humans are everywhere surrounded by icky things that can infect us. We’ve neglected these threats for many thousands of years by traveling around, moving here and there, domesticating animals, and living too closely together. This must change, they opine, because bad pathogens are ever more leaping from the outside world into humans.

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FAFO: George Mason University Student Who Called for Violence Against Trump Administration Gets Evicted and Referred to Law Enforcement by School

A student at George Mason University in Virginia named Nicholas Alexander Decker recently published an essay calling for violence against members of the Trump administration and Trump supporters.

He has since been evicted from his apartment, and the school referred his essay to law enforcement. In other words, he is entering the ‘find out’ phase of his life.

It’s amazing how the left thinks nothing of calling for violence over politics when they don’t get their way.

Fairfax County News reports:

George Mason University contacts law enforcement after student posts essay on political violence

George Mason University said it has referred a student’s essay to state and federal law enforcement after it sparked concern online.

While GMU did not respond to a FFXnow request to specify which essay, a social media post from GMU comes after a student’s Substack post titled ‘When Must We Kill Them?‘ went viral in conservative circles.

The essay questions when resistance to President Donald Trump’s administration should become violent.

“If the present administration chooses this course, then the questions of the day can be settled not with legislation, but with blood and iron,” the essay said. “In short, we must decide when we must kill them.”

The essay does not explicitly call for violence against any administration officials, but argues that Americans should have a threshold at which they turn to violent revolution. It claims that it may be best to “wait for elections, but if it should threaten the ability to remove it, we shall have no choice.”

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Congressman Visits Ukraine Frontlines, Filmed Firing Heavy Weapon

Apparently trying to out-hawk the late John McCain, Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick has described that he recently traveled to Ukraine and spent several days at the front lines.

The 51-year old Republican rep from Pennsylvania spent a total of a week inside the war-ravaged country, visiting soldiers while making declarations that Ukraine and the US will defeat the Russian military.

Fitzpatrick even did a provocative photo op wherein he signed an artillery shell “to Putin”. And even more alarming is that he filmed himself firing a large gun, which may have been an anti-aircraft weapon.

It’s unclear whether he was manning the gun near an actual combat zone, or if he was really engaging a target. Likely it was at some kind of training or firing range.

Still, it’s clear the Congressman was trying to be as provocative against the Russians as possible, at a moment a Republican president is trying to forge peace between Moscow and Kiev.

Crucially, Fitzpatrick traveled around with Ukraine’s National Guard Artillery and Third Assault Brigade – the latter which is made up of Azov Special Operations soldiers and is commanded by Andriy Biletsky, who has long been accused of having neo-Nazi links and ideology.

He wrote on X after the trip, “It was my profound honor to deliver a very ‘personal’ message to Vladimir Putin today, from the front lines of the war near the Russian border, on behalf of our PA-1 community.  The only permissible details to share are that ‘the message was delivered on target.’“

This does suggest he may have been firing on or near an actual war zone – though the security risks would be enough to probably prevent him from getting very close to any real fighting.

Fitzpatrick has been receiving significant backlash over the stunt, especially as it could harm the cause of Trump’s efforts to negotiate peace settlement. In addressing ‘messages’ directly to Putin, it seems a deliberate effort at sabotaging peace.

Gen. Mike Flynn (ret.) ripped the Congressman, saying on X: “How stupid can you be?”

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Democrat House Leader Hakeem Jeffries Openly Disses Strategy of DNC Vice Chair David Hogg

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries appeared on ABC News over the weekend and openly defied the recently announced strategy of DNC vice chair David Hogg, who is planning to primary members of his own party.

This is the second time in a week that Hogg has been called out by a high level Democrat. Dem strategist James Carville called David Hogg ‘a contemptible little twerp’ during a recent appearance on NewsNation.

The DNC made a huge mistake in appointing Hogg as vice chair. He is an activist. He has zero experience in getting people elected to office.

The New York Post reports:

Dem Jeffries brushes aside DNC big David Hogg’s primary plan, vows to stand by incumbents

Dem House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries on Sunday rejected a Democratic National Committee big’s controversial plan to fund primary challenges against passive party members in safe districts.

Jeffries of New York instead touted his intent to back all House Democratic incumbents across the country in the 2026 cycle and push the party to focus on knocking off Republicans.

“I look forward to standing behind every single Democratic incumbent, from the most progressive to the most centrist and all points in between,” Jeffries told ABC News’ “This Week” when asked about the opposing stance by Democratic National Committee Vice Chairman David Hogg.

“They’re working hard in their communities, rising to the occasion,” Jeffries said of Dem incumbents.

Last week, Hogg, who has been serving as one of three DNC vice chairs since February, announced that his organization, “Leaders We Deserve,” will pump out $20 million to challenge low-key House Dem incumbents in favor of more combative contenders.

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